


How It Ends

by jane_x80



Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, Depression, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Eventual Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pre-Slash, Rehabilitation, Slow Build, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-09 21:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18925435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_x80/pseuds/jane_x80
Summary: Upon his return from a long term undercover assignment with the DEA, Tony hides a problem he'd acquired during his time away. Given that he no longer feels as if his NCIS 'family' ever cared for him, he gives in to his darkest thoughts and spirals down into addiction and its consequences, and Gibbs is his only hope of coming back from this. If Tony even wants to come back from this.





	1. In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rose_malmaison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_malmaison/gifts).



> This is the second of my NCIS 2019 Reverse Bang stories, and is the last Reverse Bang story to be posted for this year.
> 
> I was lucky enough to claim for my second story, [this artwork](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/solariana/7360051/42922/42922_original.jpg), made by the incomparable [rose_malmaison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_malmaison/pseuds/rose_malmaison). The artwork is incredible, and so rich and evocative that it made the muse write this story. Please, please, please mind the tags and heed the warnings. I've put a note in the beginning of some chapters so you can check the end notes of that chapter for possibly triggering items that happen. This is a difficult story to read, but I promise it ends happily. You have to bear with me a little. 😁
> 
> [jesco0307](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesco0307/pseuds/jesco0307) was again my beta for this fic. Thank you so very much for doing this, especially since it was a second story, and I know RL was throwing you some challenges. I really appreciate your input. All remaining errors are, of course, my own.
> 
> The title of the story comes from the lyrics of [Breaking the Habit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2H4l9RpkwM) by Linkin Park:  
>  _I'll paint it on the walls_  
>  _'Cause I'm the one at fault_  
>  _I'll never fight again_  
>  _And this is **how it ends**_
> 
> The other two songs I listened to while writing this, which might give you another hint as to the subject matter and overall tenor of the story are:  
> * [Semi-Charmed Life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beINamVRGy4) (Third Eye Blind)  
> * [Let Her Cry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aVHLL5egRY) (Hootie and the Blowfish)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see specific warnings in the end notes of this chapter.

**Chapter One: In the Beginning**

[](https://i.imgur.com/239cCfx.jpg)

“How do you feel today?”

Tony took a seat and stared out the window. “Fine.”

Predictably, the woman scribbled something in her notebook. Tony suppressed a sigh and tried not to roll his eyes at the cliché that the woman presented. There was silence, but Tony didn’t care, continuing to look out the window. The view was the same as it was yesterday and the day before and the day before that: an expanse of beautifully manicured lawn, and in the distance, a tall fence, and beyond it, woods.

“Did you know…” the woman’s question made Tony flick his eyes back at her, “that in the ten days that you’ve been in here, speaking with me one on one, every time I ask you how you are, no matter how I vary asking you this question, that you always answer that you’re ‘fine’?”

“Maybe because I _am_ fine?” Tony snarked.

“ _Are_ you?”

Tony shrugged, turned away from those eyes and looked back out the window and resisted the urge to rub his chest. Because he wasn’t fine. He was far from fine and he knew it. But talking about things that mattered was too much for him on a good day, and he hadn’t had a good day in… god he can’t even remember how long. Too long, obviously. Tony could talk sure, he was very good at it, he could talk rings around anyone, convince them of anything. He was a champion at circumlocution. But he was terrible if he needed to speak about serious things in a serious setting. He was aware that this was as serious a setting as it could be, if he ever wanted to return to some semblance of normal.

“Let’s try something different today. Tell me about the first time you used.”

Tony sighed. “Ever?”

“If you like.”

“I dabbled in marijuana, like everyone else did in college. Didn’t really enjoy it. Never developed any kind of dependency on it.”

“I see.”

“I was attached to Vice for a while, when I was with the Baltimore PD,” Tony continued. “There were times I had to use. Various different drugs. But if I did, I was usually undercover as the strung out broke guy so I didn’t have money to blow on the good stuff, and was at that point in an addict’s life where no one would front me the goods and expect me to make good later. So mostly I just had to act like I was strung out. And sometimes I faked using. A few times I did a bit of the serious stuff. But again, I didn’t develop any addictions or dependencies.”

“And yet here you are.”

Tony shrugged. Here he was.

“What was different this time?”

Tony had to think about it for a moment. What was different this time? _Everything_. This time, he wasn’t a kid messing around with his buddies getting high on weed. This time he wasn’t micced up, with his partner and backup team listening in and ready to bail him out if things got too hairy. This time, his ties to NCIS and to the MCRT had been fraying for a while, and he’d been sent to work with the DEA without proper consultation or preparation. It felt like the whole Agent Afloat thing all over again, even though he was nowhere near a boat. And this time, he no longer believed he would have their support. This time he didn’t have a safety net.

This time, he was on his own.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been a couple of weeks into the assignment. Tony was deep undercover now and would only meet with his DEA handlers once in a while. No more than once a month, they had thought. Tony supposed that he should be flattered that they had such faith in his abilities, but it was true that he’d made a name for himself doing undercover work, especially prior to joining NCIS. There was the time he took down the Macaluso family back in Philly. He’d done a bunch of different Vice related stings in Baltimore, before being promoted to Robbery Homicide. Tony knew he was a natural when it came to acting like someone else and with his resume, the DEA trusted him to do this right without their interference.

Tony embraced his role wholeheartedly. The sting of NCIS’s betrayal was still beating strong in his chest. How a teammate could think that leaving someone without backup was perfectly fine, he just couldn’t understand. And knowing that he didn’t have Gibbs’ support in this had been the final straw. He couldn’t comprehend how his backup could turn their radios off because they were tired of listening to his voice while he was running a potentially dangerous undercover op. Was Tony DiNozzo so terrible that he couldn’t even be given what should be simple professional courtesy? He’d been a senior member of the team for years, but he was obviously not even tolerated by his team. It just hadn’t sat right with him after that case, so he was happy to be away from NCIS and happy to embrace being someone else for a while.

Right now, he was a mid-level distributor, mostly of high end stuff like cocaine and heroin. The DEA had planted all these stories about him up and down the east coast, how his clientele was small and exclusive, and he liked it that way. He wasn’t looking into expanding his business, but he wanted to source better quality drugs. He had clients who would pay through the nose to stick pure stuff in their noses. But this wasn’t supposed to be a simple thing. They didn’t just want Tony’s supplier. That wasn’t what the op’s end goal was. The DEA had spread other stories about him. Rumor had it, he had several very profitable and legal ways of laundering his money, and that was what the Mexican cartel wanted to invest in, they wanted to profit from his genius with finances. And that was what the DEA wanted, access to the cartel’s finances.

It would be a win-win situation for everyone, and Tony had already made contact with them, two weeks into the assignment. Two weeks after that, he was at a remote and lonely location where he exchanged an expensive briefcase filled with cash for a duffel bag of pure, uncut cocaine. Eduardo had brought a money counter machine and was verifying that Tony had brought what was promised, and Tony was expected to test the quality of the merchandise. He snorted a line from a sample taken from the duffel and… it was magic. Not wanting to waste any of it, he swiped the remains with his finger and rubbed it on his gums, and he tried to hide the rush he was feeling from Eduardo. After all, he was supposed to be experienced, and should have developed a tolerance for this.

But Eduardo was smiling at him. “For you, 100% pure, like you asked,” he gloated. “You feel the difference, _si?_ ”

Tony nodded, and he could practically feel the drug hit his bloodstream, resulting in hyper alertness, confidence, and an absolute euphoria. He hadn’t been so fucking happy in a _long_ time. He sniffed and rubbed his nose. Fuck. This was the _good_ stuff.

Business concluded quickly after that and Tony took the duffel, got into his black SUV, smirked at Eduardo and left. He probably shouldn’t have been driving in his condition, but fuck, he felt so _good_. Following procedure, he made sure he wasn’t being tailed before he dropped the duffel off at the pre-determined location with the DEA. If he was driving erratically, well, at least he wasn’t stopped by a cop, and at least the erratic driving would have absolutely let Tony know if he was being followed. No one could have done that effectively and hidden it from Tony, what with how he was driving. So he made that drop off without any issues.

While this was a good first step, they wanted the cartel to get even more involved with Tony. They wanted to get them hooked on the money laundering. Follow the money, and they’d get to the source. That was the goal. It wasn’t enough to just take down mid-level distributors, even of this high end stuff. Tony knew the deal.

And that first time, Tony didn’t even take any for himself for later. He went to the private club that drug dealer Tony belonged to, a high end gentleman’s club, danced for a few hours, fucked a guy in the luxurious men’s room, before he took a cab home to drug dealer Tony’s apartment. Tony couldn’t quite remember the face of the guy he’d fucked, but he was another patron of the club. Maybe. Or a server. Tony seriously couldn’t tell, but he’d had so much energy, there was a zing in his every move, and the man’s pretty moans had burned in his bloodstream, giving him a different kind of high.

Luckily, he made it home before he crashed. Because crash he did. He found himself sprawled on the sleek and very expensive sofa, tie loosened, head on the wall, legs spread wide, hands propping himself on the sofa cushions, so he didn’t just slide down into an absolute puddle. He had absolutely no energy now and just sitting was taking too much out of him. And with the come down, his own self-doubt and worries about his future came barreling into his brain. Gibbs no longer wanted him on the team, of that he was absolutely certain. Gibbs’ treatment of him had worsened in the last few years. Why Tony was still stubbornly sticking around NCIS, Tony didn’t even know. But he just knew that after this, Gibbs was going to boot him out. He’d disappointed the team lead for the last time.

All of the things that Tony had done for him didn’t matter to Gibbs. All that he had been for him. All of these years, Tony had been Gibbs’ Saint Bernard, and the only reward Tony experienced was a grunt of approval, approximately every six months or so. Why the hell was Tony still with NCIS? Still with the MCRT? He should have totally taken the position in Rota when Jenny offered that to him. But no. No, no, no. Why would Tony DiNozzo choose the healthy option that gave him not just upward motion in his career but free him from the spell of Gibbs’ blue eyes? He would have been a continent away from Gibbs and maybe then he would have been able to give himself time to mend his broken heart, maybe even find some beautiful Spaniard, _hombre o mujer_ , didn’t even matter, to settle down with. Make a new life for himself.

But no. Tony DiNozzo had to stay right where he was and stay under Gibbs’ thumb and allow him to keep breaking his heart on a daily basis. Because Tony DiNozzo was just _that_ stupid.

Tony was reminded of the time in college when one of his frat brothers had invited him home for Christmas. It wasn’t like Tony even knew where Senior was at that point in time. He hadn’t even seen Senior in a couple of years. So Tony had gone home to a small farming town in northern Indiana – he couldn’t even remember the name of the town. But what he did remember was driving down a two lane state road in the middle of a bad winter. Even though the roads were plowed and clear, there wasn’t much traffic on the lonely highway. Farmland stretched out, barren and covered in deep snow, as far as the eye could see. Ice covered the little creeks that they drove by, and ice covered the small trees that dotted the stark landscape. It looked like the barren tundra. It looked like nothing could survive there. Not any animals, not any plants or trees. The trees tended to be on the smaller side and looked as if they were wind battered, small and weak in the face of the flat plain stretching out as far as the eye could see in every direction.

In a word, the whole drive had been _bleak_.

And that was Tony’s life. That was the future that Tony could look forward to once this assignment was over. Bleak. Like the plains of northern Indiana in the deep freeze of winter. Icy winds. Snow. Nothingness.

Tony was so screwed. There was nothing left for him in this world. Gibbs didn’t care about him, never mind any of his old daydreams of finding any kind of happiness with Gibbs. That was Tony’s biggest mistake. Thinking that if he stuck around Gibbs, that the man would finally _see_ him for who he was. Maybe once upon a time that was true. But these days? Gibbs barely looked at him, and if he did, it was with the same expression he had as if he’d stepped in gum and was trying to get it off his shoe.

It was time for Tony to leave. It was long past time. But he didn’t know why he would even bother at this point. Why? What else was there for him? Vance would never offer him a promotion. He’d gone as far as he could go at NCIS and he was too fucking old to be switching careers. He was a cop. That was what he knew, that was who he was. What else could he be but a cop?

Sure, other agencies offered him jobs on a regular basis, but Tony couldn’t take them seriously. It wasn’t like they appreciated him or his skills. He was just some pawn in a bigger game – something that involved upsetting Gibbs, no doubt. Not that Gibbs would care if Tony ever left. He would hardly even be a blip on the man’s radar.

So where was Tony supposed to go? He was a washed up cop with no future. He was worthless. He was nothing to anyone. He could just disappear from the face of the earth and no one would miss him.

What else was new? It had been the story of his entire childhood. And now here he was, looking at the same bleakness for the rest of his life.

What was even the point of it all?

[](https://i.imgur.com/kutr64g.jpg)

Tony stared at the ceiling, wondering if he could find a message up there. Something to point him in the right direction. Because he was lost and he didn’t know how he was supposed to find his way. Anyone looking at his life – his real life as Tony DiNozzo – would believe that he’d led a semi-charmed life. Born into affluence, a football and basketball star in college, earned his gold shield with Philly PD way before he was thirty, his subsequent career moves leading to him becoming a Federal Agent. He had looks and money. It would seem that he had everything. But the truth was that he had nothing because he had no real family. He’d thought that having a made family would work out for him in the long run, but that was proving untrue. That was the problem with trusting people and letting them in. Inevitably, he depended on them for certain things. And when they died or left or just simply stopped responding to him, he was left to cope alone. Ziva. Abby. McGee. They had all been family to him at some point, but evidently he had stopped being family to them a long time ago.

All he could see was a bleak tundra of ice cold loneliness in store for him after this was over. There was nothing left for him at this point.

And right now, all Tony could think of was this one question: Why the fuck didn’t he keep some of the coke for himself? It wasn’t as if the DEA knew exactly how much he would have received. He could have kept a little for himself. To pick himself up after last night. Because it had been so goddamned long since Tony had felt _so_ good. He was tired of feeling bad about himself and his life. And he was tired about the ever pressing loneliness that threatened to drown him. And right now, he was tired because he had just had an awful comedown from his high, and he had nothing even resembling the hair of the dog to get him back up.

He licked his gums in the vain hope that a morsel of cocaine was still there, but of course, he was completely out now. Sucks to be him.

He let himself drift along with his depressing thoughts for a while, and kind of dozed on the sofa. When his phone alarm rang, breaking him out of his miserable nap, he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, sighed, and proceeded to force himself up and off the sofa. He had a day job to get to, his cover day job that was. And even if he had spent the night dancing and fucking, Antonio DiBianchi always made it in to his office to do his important job as an investment banker.

Tony sighed. He actually did have a lot of work to do at his stupid cover job. Just because McGee thought he was a dumbass didn’t mean that he actually was. He did actually know how to be an investment banker. He’d managed his own investment portfolio and trust funds very successfully for years, so much so that he even helped out a few of his old frat buddies. He’d gotten a double degree in Physical Education and Business, and over the years, he’d really kept up with the Business part of things. If nothing else, he never wanted to find himself in Senior’s position of coming up with con after con, always looking to fleece people for money. He always wanted to make sure he was financially secure, job or no job. Just because he loved being a cop didn’t mean he loved the cop’s salary or felt like he could one day retire with only that for an income.

So yes. Tony DiBianchi was a bona fide investment banker on Wall Street and he earned his money the honest way, or as honestly as anyone on Wall Street did. And right now it was time for DiBianchi to shower, dress in an expensive designer business suit and get to work.

But the next time he met with Eduardo, he was definitely skimming some of the product before leaving it at the DEA drop off location, to help him get through this. He needed it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Tony,” the voice made Tony look up, surfacing from his memories. “What was different this time?”

Tony sighed and pretended to think for a moment before he answered. “I don’t know,” he lied. He stopped resisting the urge, and gently kneaded his chest with the backs of two fingers.

“It seems like you _do_ know.”

“It’s not important.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you’re thinking, and we can unpack it and see whether it is important or not?” she was kind, but Tony wasn’t really in the mood.

“It’s nothing.”

The woman scribbled furiously in her notebook and Tony almost felt anger rise up within him. Almost. But that would require far more energy than he had. So he just looked out the window. Green grass. The trees beyond. So different from the frozen arctic tundra that was contained within him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a scene containing explicit use of cocaine by Tony in this chapter.


	2. The Void

**Chapter Two: The Void**

[](https://i.imgur.com/CoFKrAI.jpg)

Another day, another session. Tony didn’t know why they were persisting in trying to get him to ‘participate in his own recovery’. It wasn’t as if he had anyone waiting for him on the outside. It wasn’t as if he had a future.

“Tell me about Gibbs.”

Tony turned away from the window and gave her a surprised look. “Gibbs?”

“Yes. Gibbs.”

“What about Gibbs?”

“You tell me.”

Tony pursed his lips. “He’s my boss?”

“Are you asking me, or telling me?”

Tony sighed. The wordplay was annoying, but she was a shrink. She had a job to do. “Telling you.”

“So he’s your boss.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Nothing more?”

“What more could there be?” Tony rolled his eyes.

“I don’t know. A partner?”

“He’s partnered with me over the years, sure.”

“But he’s not someone you’d consider your partner?”

Not for a long time now, Tony thought, but kept that to himself. “The MCRT is a team. We worked as a team and partnered with each other interchangeably, as necessary, and as appropriate.”

“That sounds like a spiel.”

Tony shrugged.

“So you don’t think of him as your partner?”

“Why would I?”

“You worked with him as a two man team for two whole years, before you started adding other members to the MCRT,” she pointed out. “Surely that makes him your partner.”

“Well then, maybe back then he was my partner.”

“But he’s not now?”

“I wouldn’t say so, no.”

“How would you describe him?”

“My boss. I don’t know what more you want me to say,” Tony looked out the window at the grass again. The fence. The woods beyond it.

How would he describe Gibbs? Bossy. Strict. Gruff. Taciturn. Grumpy. Coffee addict. Sniper. Marine. Widower. Divorcee. Angry. Someone who can never be pleased. Unattainable. Handsome. Remote. Rule maker. Rule breaker.

Heartbreaker.

None of it was enough to describe Gibbs. It was pointless to even try. Tony had given that up long ago. He’d once called him a functional mute, and while that description wasn’t inaccurate, it didn’t encapsulate who Gibbs was as a whole.

“Would it surprise you to know that he’s been here to see you every week?”

So that was who kept coming, Tony thought. He gave his doctor a bored look. “Huh,” he said, before looking back out the window.

“So it _does_ surprise you.”

Tony shrugged.

“Would it surprise you to know that I spoke with him?”

“Did he _actually_ speak, or was it all you?” Tony couldn’t help but ask.

She laughed. “You have his measure.”

“I _have_ worked for him for years,” Tony said shortly. Too many years. Long enough that he’d closed all other doors and he was stuck now.

“Would it surprise you to know that he refers to you as his partner, Agent DiNozzo?”

Being addressed by his title almost made him startle. It had been a long time since he’d heard that, and he was probably done being that forever. Whatever. But as to whether or not Gibbs addressed him as his partner, well, what did it even matter? Gibbs would call him his sweetheart if it got him the information he wanted. He was sure Gibbs would need to know what was going on with Tony, since he’d been sequestered in the facility. Gibbs hated losing control, and Tony was well beyond his control in here.

“Not really,” Tony told her, deciding to be honest.

“No? But you don’t consider him your partner?”

“Gibbs’ll say anything to get you on his side,” Tony gave her a slow smile. “Looks like he got exactly what he wanted from you.”

She just stared at him, her expression inscrutable. “So you don’t believe he thinks of you as his partner?”

“Why would he?” Tony shrugged. “We functioned as a team. We were all each other’s partners. You’re attaching significance to this term for no reason.”

She scribbled in her notebook.

“Are you aware that you just used the past tense for all of that?” she asked.

Tony rolled his eyes, sighed loudly, and looked back out the window. Maybe he’d catch a glimpse of a squirrel. Or a chipmunk. Chipmunks were better. They were cuter. Those little dots on their backs were adorable.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[](https://i.imgur.com/gQjWXKe.jpg)

Gibbs sat in the waiting room, with the other friends and family members, waiting for the buzzer to go off and for the orderly to open the door. Visitors were only allowed once a week for two hours on Saturday afternoon. Gibbs had come four weeks in a row, only to sit alone in the main visitation area, while others saw their loved ones. Tony had not come out to see him in the weeks since he had been admitted to this facility.

Gibbs didn’t know what it meant that he hadn’t been able to see Tony. Hopefully it didn’t mean that his Senior Field Agent was having problems, and was being confined to his bunk or some such. Tony was usually a troublemaker, so he wouldn’t put it past him. But there was a huge part of him that was worried, because Tony hadn’t seemed himself for so long now. He hoped that Tony was recovering. He hoped that the heart attack was enough of an eye opener. He hoped that Tony was getting better.

All he could do was hope, since he couldn’t seem to get a look at the man to see for himself. To speak to him. To gauge his responses. It probably didn’t help that Tony had gone straight from open heart surgery to rehab, almost in one fell swoop.

Gibbs couldn’t help but flash back to that awful, terrible day. It had been the culmination of a long and upsetting week. Tony had been acting so strangely, and Gibbs kept kicking himself for not seeing that there was a real problem there. He just didn’t see it. Couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t see it? He didn’t know what the right word was.

But that evening, after he’d sent everyone home, and Tony had stormed off, angry that Gibbs had called him out in front of McGee and Ziva for his reckless endangerment of a witness, Tony’s anger ate at him. Sure, maybe Gibbs could have done that in private, chewed him out without witnesses. But no, Gibbs was a bastard, had always been one, and he’d ripped right into the man for that crazy, erratic driving that he’d done with their star witness strapped to the passenger seat. And yes, they were being pursued by the arms traffickers, so it wasn’t like Tony could just take his time and carefully schlep the passenger into protective custody. It had been a crazy car chase, but Tony had driven like a _madman_. Coming from Gibbs, whose driving record was hardly spotless, it meant something. Tony had driven erratically, and to say that he was speeding would have been an understatement. Tony pushed that car to its limit.

It wasn’t anything Gibbs could properly quantify because Tony had protected their witness and gotten him to safety. But it was in the how of it. He had been careless and unpredictable, his driving wild and uncontrolled. The car had been all over the road instead of Tony pulling off his usual controlled defensive and offensive driving maneuvers. But the end result was that it worked out. The witness was safe. Tony was safe. Nobody had died. Gibbs and Ziva had actually even managed to work with DC Metro to apprehend two of the men who had been in pursuit. They even had a path forward with the case, given that they now had two of the men to interrogate, on top of the witness that was currently in protective custody.

But Tony had been careless. So Gibbs lit into him that evening. But instead of backing down and apologizing, this time Tony had yelled right back at him, pointing out that he’d done everything Gibbs had asked of him, and what the hell else did he want from him? And then he’d stormed off to the men’s room. Gibbs had stopped McGee from going after him. He didn’t need any further animosity because things seemed to be strained between the two men right now. He didn’t want McGee to further aggravate Tony.

So he waited, and after a few minutes, Tony came back and he seemed calm, if still full of nervous energy. He kept sniffing and rubbing his nose. Gibbs _should_ have seen it then. He should have seen it earlier, of course, but he _definitely_ should have seen it then. All that sniffing. His wildly varied energy levels. His erratic behavior. The stark ups and downs. He should have seen it. He should have suspected something. But he didn’t. He’d closed himself off from Tony some time ago, and so he didn’t listen to that rumbling in his gut that had him worried about Tony ever since he came back from his assignment with the DEA two weeks ago.

But that night, he couldn’t stop that terrible feeling in the pit of his belly. Something bad was going to happen and he didn’t know what it was. Something was going to go wrong, and if he didn’t do something, it would be too late.

Whatever it was, his gut made him get in his car and drive to Tony’s apartment. And even if Tony never came out to see him during the weekly visitation period, even if Tony never spoke to him again, he thanked every god there was that he’d listened to his gut that night.

When he got to Tony’s apartment building, he’d taken his time, trying to convince himself that everything was fine and that he should just leave and go home, drown his sorrows in bourbon. But that burning feeling in his gut wouldn’t let up. So he finally went up to Tony’s floor and knocked on his door. There was no answer.

He put his ear to the door and listened intently. He could hear the low murmur of the tv – when did DiNozzo _not_ have a movie on? Which reassured him. But still nobody came to the door and he couldn’t hear any movement inside.

If Tony was asleep, he’d be incredibly upset at this, but Gibbs decided he would use the key that Tony had given him all those years ago, when Gibbs had come to help Tony move in. He’d helped move that behemoth of a baby grand around the apartment until he’d put his foot down and decided that was good enough, and Tony had agreed. It was so long ago, and Tony had given him a key way back then. Back before McGee. Before Kate. But he had never used it. Had rarely even gone to Tony’s apartment, usually counting on the younger man coming to visit him in his basement.

He was going to use the goddamned key that had remained on his key ring, unused for all these years. So he unlocked the door and walked in.

“DiNozzo!” he called out.

There was no answer.

Gibbs walked into the apartment and looked around. “DiNozzo?”

He peeked into the bedroom before he decided to turn the TV off. Surely that would bring the man out from wherever he was hiding. And on the way there, he’d practically tripped over Tony’s leg.

Tony was splayed on his back on the floor, eyes closed, by his liquor cabinet. A glass was shattered a foot or so away from him, and Gibbs could smell something… scotch, maybe? Alcohol, hard liquor, of some sort. Spilled on the floor. He was on his knees, feeling for a pulse, and it was very faint. He made sure Tony’s shirt was unbuttoned and his airways clear as he called 911. He didn’t know what the hell was going on but Tony definitely needed medical help now.

He checked Tony’s pupils and they were incredibly dilated. There seemed to be dried blood under his nose. Had Tony had a bloody nose? Why was his pulse so thready? What the hell was going on?

His eyes scanned the living room and he saw, right there, on the coffee table, lay a small plastic straw, what looked to be a coffee stirrer that had been shortened, and some kind white powdery residue. He took a chance to leave Tony for a moment to take a closer look and because it was Tony and this was completely unthinkable for Tony, it took him a moment to realize what he was seeing. Tony was doing coke. He’d just snorted cocaine and now he was unresponsive on the floor.

Gibbs scrambled back to Tony, telling the operator that he wasn’t sure, but maybe Tony was overdosing. He felt for a pulse, and he couldn’t find one now. Tony had stopped breathing.

“No. No, no, no, no, no, no, _no_. Not like this, goddamn it! _Not like this_!” Gibbs began yelling at the unconscious man. “No pulse. He stopped breathing,” he told the operator. “Commencing CPR.”

Gibbs started doing chest compressions before giving Tony mouth to mouth. Doing this over and over, until finally, Tony started breathing again. The EMTs arrived just then and Gibbs moved aside to let them work.

[](https://i.imgur.com/5WIAFn6.jpg)

He found out later, at the hospital, that Tony hadn’t actually ODed. He’d had a heart attack. One of his aortae had ruptured, as a side effect of cocaine use. He’d apparently also been drinking, and the alcohol had reacted with the cocaine to make his heart even worse. _Alcohol and cocaine can react to produce cocaethylene_ , Ducky had said. Something about how this could _potentiate the toxic effects of cocaine and alcohol on the heart_. And if Gibbs hadn’t found him when he had, Tony would _most definitely no longer be with us_.

It took everything in Gibbs to not just punch the bejesus out of Ducky for that. Because that scenario, where Tony was most definitely no longer with them, that was _completely_ unacceptable. That was not a scenario that Gibbs wanted to even think about. Especially not like this.

Whatever the medical gobbledygook was, it meant that Tony was in surgery getting his chest cracked open, an emergency procedure to fix him. Fix whatever was wrong with his heart. Because Tony, his beautiful Tony DiNozzo, was now a habitual user of coke.

How had that happened? And how had Gibbs not noticed this? While he sat in the waiting room, little things came to him. After Tony had gotten back from his six-month deep cover assignment with the DEA, he hadn’t been behaving quite like himself. Well, he was, but sometimes he was too much himself. Too effusive. Too excited. Too happy. Too frenetic. Take the first morning he’d come back to the Navy Yard. He’d gone straight down to the lab to hang with Abby, which wasn’t something unusual. But when Gibbs and McGee had come into the lab, Tony had taken one look at McGee, yelled “Probie!” and enveloped him in a tight bear hug.

And not that hugs were that unusual between his MCRT team members, just usually they tended to hug Abby. They didn’t tend to hug each other, opting for hearty pats on the back instead, unless they had been through some kind of life threatening situation. They didn’t just jump on each other, giving each other bear hugs just because they felt like it. Especially not Ziva. But here was Tony still holding on tight to McGee while the junior agent kind of stuttered a little before patting Tony’s back awkwardly. And when Tony finally released McGee, he turned to Ziva who brandished a knife and gave him a warning, “Unh unh unh,” shaking her head. And of course, Tony didn’t dare to embrace Gibbs. He only gave Gibbs a little wave and a “Hi, Boss.”

But the hug was absolutely uncharacteristic of DiNozzo. The hug was the first sign. And afterwards, there were more of them.

Gibbs pictured that scene where McGee was joking around and handing Tony a stack of folders, telling him that since he’d just come back to the team, technically he was the junior agent. McGee was still Gibbs’ acting Senior Field Agent. And he was assigning Tony the stack of cold cases to review and input into their database. Normally Tony would laugh and say something funny and appropriately cutting and mean to the younger man, but instead he’d bristled with real anger, hands in his pockets, glaring at McGee before he blew up and yelled at him. He’d snarled something about McGee never taking his place before he’d stormed away, grabbing his badge and gun and disappearing down the stairwell.

McGee had exchanged puzzled looks with Ziva, but neither of them had said anything to Tony about it after that. And neither had Gibbs. And he should have seen it. There was a viciousness to Tony’s tone that he never affected, unless he was talking to a criminal, and only if he needed to get a reaction out of them. Tony was almost always affable and easy going. He agreed to everything Gibbs said and always obeyed every order. He teased and pranked people, but he didn’t get angry at them. Not outwardly, at least. He was usually one to let things lie, until it got too much for even him, and then he tended to do sneaky things to get back at people. Not this kind of openly angry behavior. Tony was subtle and had a light touch. This had been much too heavy handed. And Gibbs should have seen it.

Then there were the mornings when he would come into work looking absolutely and incredibly rough. Like everything hurt and even breathing was too much effort. But he always perked up sometime in the morning.

Because he’d gone to inhale a line of coke, Gibbs’ conscience supplied. Maybe several lines of coke. He needed to recover from the post-high crash.

And there was all that incessant sniffling, and ‘allergies’ that kept attacking him, keeping his nose runny and his eyes bloodshot.

Gibbs should have seen through it. He should have known that something was wrong with his Tony. Because it was all there, if he had only bothered to see through Tony’s masks. If he had only done something earlier. Maybe Tony wouldn’t be in surgery with his chest cracked open. Maybe Tony would have received help for his addiction instead of open heart surgery.

Why hadn’t Gibbs seen it? He just didn’t understand how he could have just not seen it. How could he have missed this?

Gibbs sighed and rubbed his face. He found himself looking around the visitation room. There were people clustered at tables. Couples, families. But Gibbs sat alone at a small table. Tony still hadn’t come out to see his visitor. Gibbs knew that he was probably worrying over nothing, but he couldn’t stop himself. Why wouldn’t Tony at least come out to greet whoever had come to see him? Why was he refusing to see anyone? This was Gibbs’ fourth week in a row at the rehab facility. Abby, Ducky and McGee had all come with him the first time but since then, only Gibbs had arrived and waited faithfully for Tony, who never materialized. It didn’t matter if they were hot on the trail of something on a case or other, Gibbs would delegate duties and make the trek to the facility to try to see Tony. And so far, every time he had to go home disappointed.

It seemed like it was going to be yet another disappointing attempt. People were starting to leave now that the orderly had buzzed the end of visitation hours. Gibbs tried not to look at people as they said goodbye to their loved ones. He didn’t want to see if he could tell which of these patients would stay clean and which wouldn’t. Sometimes it was so clear cut and he could easily tell whose recovery would be successful and whose wouldn’t. But now, with Tony being a patient here, he couldn’t bring himself to look at who else might be getting treatment and their chances of a successful recovery.

He was one of the last people to walk out the door, and an orderly stopped him.

“Agent Gibbs?” he asked.

“Yes?” Gibbs’ heart was in his throat. What were they going to tell him? Was Tony OK? Had something happened to him? Had he had another coronary event?

“Please come with me.”

Gibbs followed the man until he buzzed the agent through a locked door. A woman stood, waiting for him. She had dark hair, and a dark complexion. She wore a white lab coat over a simple silk blouse and slacks. She had practical looking pumps on her feet.

“Agent Gibbs, I’m Anita Khan,” she held out her hand.

Gibbs shook it. “Is DiNozzo OK?”

“He’s one of my patients.”

“Is he OK? Did he have another heart attack?”

“No, no. His heart seems to be fine,” she reassured him. “But I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind speaking to me for a moment. I am his therapist.”

Gibbs nodded, and followed her to her office.


	3. Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see specific warnings in the end notes of this chapter.

**Chapter Three: Darkness**

[](https://i.imgur.com/239cCfx.jpg)

Doctor Khan closed her door and gestured to the chair across from her desk. Gibbs took a seat and waited while she settled in. Her office seemed like any other office, muted decorations, bookshelves stuffed with thick tomes, the odd photo or two on her desk. There was a comfortable looking couch against one wall with an easy chair across from it. Gibbs wondered if that was where Tony sat for his sessions with this therapist. He could picture Tony sprawled on the couch, lying down all relaxed, an insouciant grin on his face, lying his ass off and saying the right things to get through his session with flying colors, and as quickly as humanly possible. Yeah. Gibbs could definitely see Tony getting away with that, he was adept at putting the right mask on at the right time.

Khan cleared her throat and Gibbs gave her a nod, signaling that he was listening. “I understand you have worked with Agent DiNozzo for some years now?”

“Been his partner for over a decade,” Gibbs agreed.

“Then you must know him well.”

“As well as anyone can, I suppose,” Gibbs shrugged. Tony was complex and subtle. Getting to know him required effort and perseverance. Gibbs should know. It’s been a decade and it always felt like one step forward, two steps back with him. Any perceived slight and he hid himself away, forcing Gibbs to earn his trust all over again. He was like a feral cat, in that way. But every single bit of truth that Gibbs had gleaned over the years convinced him that Tony was worth getting to know. Every single hard fought nugget of truth that Tony revealed to him only deepened his feelings for DiNozzo. But they had rules about it, and he wasn’t going to break them for something he wasn’t sure was reciprocated. “He must be talking your ear off but telling you nothing right now.”

“Why do you say that?”

Gibbs frowned. “Are you saying he’s not doing that?”

Khan sighed. “He says nothing to me, for the most part.”

“ _Nothing_?” Gibbs couldn’t help but sound surprised. If there was one thing that was true about Tony, it was that he didn’t know when to shut up. He’d rather run his mouth and annoy the bad guys than do the wise thing and stay quiet and under the radar, even if he was tied up and unable to defend himself from the consequences of his antagonization. Tony was all about talking, and often his words were themselves effective weapons. It was surprising that he wasn’t just talking his therapist’s ear off and convincing her that he was fine and ready to be discharged.

“Only the bare minimum.”

“He’s seriously not running his mouth?”

Khan shook her head. “I take it this is uncharacteristic for Agent DiNozzo’s behavior?”

“Very,” Gibbs grunted. “My partner’s the loudmouth.”

“And you are the strong silent type?”

“It’s what he used to say,” Gibbs couldn’t help the small smile.

She made a sound of acknowledgement.

“He’s OK though?” Gibbs asked again.

“Define ‘OK’,” Khan made a face.

Gibbs gave her a disgruntled look.

“He is functioning,” she conceded. “But he doesn’t speak to anyone if he can help it.”

“DiNozzo? Not speaking?” Gibbs’ eyebrows went up.

Khan shook her head.

“He must be talking to _someone_ ,” Gibbs shrugged, unable to believe it. “He likes to run his mouth.” Gibbs thought it was one of his more endearing qualities, because he was able to hold a conversation with Gibbs without pressuring Gibbs into talking too much, yet without excluding him either. It was a delicate balance that he’d mastered long ago.

“We have been watching him closely,” Khan continued. “He does not speak. Not to any of us, not to any of his fellow patients.”

“Why talk to me about this? Isn’t it your job to fix him?”

“I can’t help someone who refuses to help himself,” she said somberly. “He has almost completely disengaged from everything.”

“But why?”

“This is why I thought perhaps you and I should speak. Aside from being his boss for a decade…”

“He’s my _partner_ ,” Gibbs insisted.

“Of course. My apologies. So, aside from being his partner all these years, do you have a good relationship with him outside of work?”

Gibbs made a sound and left it to her to interpret it. Because he really didn’t know the answer to that question anymore. Once upon a time, they did have a really good relationship outside of work. Tony used to come to him for advice and to just hang out. Sometimes he came over after a date or after he went clubbing. Sometimes he came over to get drunk. They never really had to talk about anything. At least, Gibbs never had to speak. Tony was always chattering about everything and nothing, Gibbs never needed to contribute to their conversation except for an occasional grunt or two every so often. It was another way in which the two men had been so compatible.

“Was he already disengaging with you and your team even before the assignment, or is this new behavior?”

Gibbs considered that question for a long moment before he answered. “I don’t know,” he gave Khan an anguished look. “I’ve been asking myself that all these weeks. What did I miss? I missed a lot after he came back, obviously. But was there anything from before…? I don’t know.”

Khan gave him a thoughtful look. “You’ve come to see him every week.”

Gibbs nodded.

“Even though he has not come out?”

“He’s my partner,” Gibbs said, as if it explained everything. Because it did. Tony was his partner, had been for all these years. He was going through a tough time and Gibbs wanted, no _needed_ , to be there for him. That was it. Tony would do the same for him if their roles were reversed. Hell, Tony _had_ done this for him numerous times, for all the times he’d been shot or needed PT or whatever. Tony was always the one he could rely on. It was killing him that he hadn’t yet seen Tony in all these weeks. “Why won’t he see me?”

Khan shook her head. “He’s disengaged from us.”

“From _me_?” DiNozzo would never disobey an order if Gibbs gave it. But he didn’t want to order the man into accepting a visit from Gibbs.

“Apparently so.”

Gibbs sighed. “So what do we do?”

“We will keep trying.”

“Try movies. He’s huge into them. Can’t live without ‘em,” Gibbs suggested. Maybe they could make some connections with him that way.

The doctor gave him a serious look. “Only because you are his emergency contact will I share this with you,” she began. “All he does is sit and look out the windows.”

“You guys don’t have a TV in here?”

“We have several TVs in the common areas of the facility.”

“No movies?”

“He has access to movies and the TVs.”

“And he doesn’t watch them?”

Khan shook her head. “He sits and looks out the window pretty much all day.”

“ _Why_?”

Khan shrugged.

Gibbs was reeling. Tony was in worse shape than he had thought. Tony wasn’t speaking, or watching movies. He was apparently ‘disengaging’ and looking out windows. What the fuck was going on with the man?

“Our worry now, is that even after we help his body kick his dependency, if he refuses CBT – cognitive behavioral therapy – then his chances of relapsing are quite high.”

“Is he getting worse?”

“His body is responding well to the pharmacological treatment to get him off cocaine. He’s doing really well there. It’s this, the talk therapy, the group therapy, this stuff that he’s refusing to participate in. And this is key to keeping him clean once he is no longer physically dependent on drugs. He needs to participate in order to reduce the chances of a relapse.”

Gibbs ran his hand down his face. “He won’t be reinstated as an agent if you don’t clear him, either.”

She nodded. “If you can think of other ways we can reach him. Perhaps get in touch with his father? We haven’t been able to do that.”

“His father’s useless,” Gibbs snorted. “He’d probably make Tony worse.” The man hadn’t even bothered to come when Tony had been dying of the plague. There was no way Gibbs wanted the man anywhere near Tony now that he was so vulnerable. “Try reaching him through movies or movie references. Say something wrong. He won’t be able to help himself. He’ll correct you.”

Khan nodded. “If you think of anything else that might help,” she handed him a card, “please do call me.”

“Likewise,” Gibbs pulled one of his cards out and they made the exchange.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[](https://i.imgur.com/GUKtq5b.jpg) [](https://i.imgur.com/GUKtq5b.jpg)

Tony sat in the office with his cardiologist. They had just given him a checkup. He’d just had open heart surgery a few weeks ago, after all. And he was still receiving inpatient treatment for his coke habit, which had caused the issues with his heart. But whatever.

He kept his eyes on the doctor who was so earnestly giving him advice on lifestyle changes, and the need to care for his body now that he’d had this close call. Tony nodded absently, not really paying that much attention to the words, but not wanting to make a fuss. Until…

“I’ve spoken at length with your primary care physician… Doctor Mallard,” the cardiologist said.

“Ducky?” Tony asked.

“Yes, right, Ducky,” he smiled. “I’ve gone over your surgery, and these most recent test results, and he and I are in agreement. Your heart has been damaged by the interaction with cocaine, and specifically how alcohol and cocaine reacted in your bloodstream. We replaced the aorta during surgery, but there is no guarantee that putting you through stressful situations won’t result in another myocardial infarction.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. His job, his entire life was one ball of stress. He wasn’t sure where the doctor was going with this.

“Coupled with the condition of your lungs.”

“My lungs are fine,” Tony objected.

“They have recovered well, this is true. But there is still quite a bit of scarring,” the doctor said apologetically.

“So?” Tony crossed his arms. That was absolutely not at all his fault. That was that crazy woman sending a bioengineered bacteria’s fault. He’d worked really hard to come back from that.

“We believe that your current lung condition will be an added stress on your heart,” the doctor had that I Have Bad News For You expression on his face. “We don’t foresee that you will be able return to your position as a field agent, even after you are fully recovered. Your heart will not be able to take that kind of stress, going forward, not anymore.”

Tony stared at him, even as he heard the death knell to his entire career. All he had left was this lousy job and he couldn’t even keep that? Well, they probably couldn’t just kick him out because he’d developed an addiction during the time that they had him embedded as a drug dealer and he’d needed to use as part of his cover. So it was easier to use the whole lung and heart issues to get rid of him.

He didn’t even know why he was surprised at this because he should have expected it. He really should have. It would have been nice if Ducky had cared enough about him to personally deliver this killing blow, but well, he knew where he stood now. He blew out a breath and nodded. What else could he do?

“This doesn’t mean that your time at NCIS is up, as Doctor Mallard points out,” the doctor was incredibly well meaning and Tony just nodded along with him. “There are plenty of non-field positions that you could move into.”

Tony nodded some more. Maybe he was turning into his very own bobblehead. Were there bobblehead dolls of NCIS agents, he wondered. They wouldn’t make bobblehead dolls of ex-NCIS agents, that was for sure.

“Doctor Mallard confided that in fact, he’d had to petition hard to allow you back in the field after your bout of the pneumonic plague,” he said conspiratorially. “But you didn’t give up, and neither did he. I don’t see how this is any different. This may seem like a setback right now, but I think it will open your horizons.”

Tony grunted his agreement, nodding yet again.

“Do you have any questions for me?”

He shook his head.

“Keep taking your meds, and work the rehab,” the cardiologist smiled and held out his hand. Woodenly, Tony took it. “You really do bounce back well, you know that? You’ve recovered from this surgery in record time, and I can’t emphasize how healthy your heart looks now, given what’s happened.”

“Thanks,” Tony murmured. Then he followed the orderly who guided him through the maze of corridors, back to the locked area that was the living space for the inpatients of the facility. They signed him back in and obediently he wandered into the common area. He parked himself on one of the lumpy ass couches, and stared out the window. From here, all he could see was a sliver of the manicured lawn, shrubbery, and the courtyard area that was where the inpatients got their outdoor exercise. Except for the lawn and the well maintained shrubbery, Tony thought that this could be a prison. He’d been undercover in a prison before.

He looked around the room and sighed. Well, at least he wouldn’t be shanked with a sharpened toothbrush here. Although at this point, how much worse could being shanked be for him?

He turned back to the window and looked outside. He should start planning for the future. He needed Plans B through G, at the very least to figure out what the hell he was supposed to do if he was ever freed of this place. But planning took energy, required focus, and most importantly, it was necessary to be motivated to even think of a plan. Tony had no motivation. What was the point of it all?

Although he did miss his apartment. He’d been away, living at Tony DiBianchi’s apartment for half a year. He missed his sanctuary. And he didn’t feel as if he’d really settled back in before the whole heart attack thing. Then he was in the hospital for a while, then carted directly to rehab after that. He’d been here so many weeks now. He wasn’t even sure anymore how many because that required him to care about things, and caring took too much energy. It wasn’t like anyone else cared about him. It was too much energy to care about himself when it was evident that no one else did. Caring for him was a waste of energy for everyone involved. Himself, included.

But still. It would have been nice to sit and wallow alone in his own apartment. His couch wasn’t lumpy, for one. And he had a whole wall of windows over his baby grand, and he had a great view. He could see people and the buildings across the busy DC street. That was better than seeing the exercise yard. It was even better than his therapist’s view of the lawn, the fence and the woods beyond. Watching people scurrying about was definitely much better than hoping to catch a glimpse of squirrels and chipmunks. Tony DiNozzo was not a country boy. Humans were more interesting than woodland creatures. Always.

He could be sitting on his very comfortable (and expensive couch), strumming his guitar or playing the piano as he watched the world pass him by. At least he would be comfortable. He would be in his own space. In his sanctuary.

He thought back to his last memory of his apartment before waking up in the hospital, hooked up to machines that beeped and whirred and hissed. He’d come back from work so agitated, so worked up about something Gibbs had said that day. He’d gone straight to the bar and started pounding the scotch. He couldn’t even remember how many shots he was downing, and at that point, he really didn’t care. He just needed that burn of alcohol down his throat. Oh, he’d abused that expensive Macallan 18, drinking to get drunk instead of sipping a double and enjoying it for its taste all night. What a fucking waste. Which he would be upset about if he had the energy to kick himself.

He’d done a couple lines of blow and gone back to the bar on the sideboard to keep on drinking. He couldn’t even recall if he’d experienced chest pains, or if his left arm had that thing that everyone said was a sign of a heart attack. He couldn’t remember anything after the coke, really. And then he was waking up in the hospital, and there was Gibbs and Ducky, looking at him so grimly. Disappointment in their eyes.

Well. Water under the bridge. They’d gotten rid of him now. That was their intent all along, after all.

Tony’s mind shied away from the reason why they were no longer family and no longer the people he could trust to watch his six. They were merely his co-workers, and they didn’t care about him in the way that he cared about them. They didn’t want to, and that was evident. Years of friendship and Tony treating them like family obviously didn’t matter, so why would he matter to them now that he was a failure?

Later, Tony went to group therapy when it was time for group therapy, but he just sat in the circle and bit his fingernails. He had nothing to contribute. These guys were trying to get better. He didn’t want to bring them down with his negativity. His father had already beat into him that old adage, if you have nothing good to say, say nothing at all.

Of course, the old Tony would’ve just said whatever he needed to say to get the fuck out of rehab. But now? What did Tony have to look forward to when he got out of rehab? He didn’t have a job anymore, no family, no girlfriend, no boyfriend. Nothing. Fuck, he didn’t even have a pet anymore, since he’d given Kate the goldfish to the neighbor kid before he left on his long term deep cover assignment. He figured he could always get himself a new Kate when he got back, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

He could see people playing pickup basketball at the court in the courtyard and idly watched them. They were pretty lousy players, but they seemed to be having fun. Tony couldn’t really remember what that felt like.

It was all so very bleak again.

That night, after he picked at his dinner, he stared out the darkened windows, wishing he could see more things out there. When the buzzer went for everyone to turn in, he headed to his room.

Being a law enforcement officer trying to kick a coke habit that had only happened because of an assignment had its perks. Tony had a single all to himself. He shut the door and went to the lone window in the room. All he could see was his own reflection in the glass. It was too dark outside.

[](https://i.imgur.com/7qEsBX6.jpg)

Sighing, he went into his bathroom to get ready for bed. He used the facilities, washed his hands and began brushing his teeth halfheartedly. This was the part he hated the most because he kept catching sight of himself in the bathroom mirror and he hadn’t felt the need to look at himself in a while. It was jarring to see himself, to be honest.

He spat and rinsed. Movement in the mirror caught his eye, and he realized he was seeing himself in the mirror. For a long moment all he could do was stare. He felt like he couldn’t even recognize himself, even though he really didn’t look any different. He pulled his t-shirt off and threw it aside, and for the first time since they took the bandages off, he took a good look at his chest.

His chest hair was coming back in. They’d had to shave it off to make the incision, so his chest hair was still patchy in places. But it was coming back. The scar was like a living thing – a rope of flesh and red scar tissue, rising like an angry welt. He felt it with his fingers. It didn’t hurt anymore. But there was a numbness, a strange weird tingly sensation but not real feeling there. It was hard to describe. He let his fingers trace the big scar down the middle of his chest and sighed. This was it for him. This was the reason he couldn’t go back to his job. Couldn’t go into the field. His heart wasn’t strong enough to take it anymore. Coke and alcohol had damaged it too much for him to completely ever fully recover from it.

It was a very odd thing to think about. He’d had so many other injuries in the past.

Slowly, he ran his fingers down his torso to the little pucker of a scar on his side that was from a bullet, back during his Philly days. A stabbing scar on his bicep. He began feeling all of the different markings on his body, all of them bearing witness to some trauma he’d experienced. Most of them for work, but some of them from before. There was a mark on his back that he could barely make out anymore that had been from Senior’s belt buckle that time he’d been too drunk to remember to whip him with the smooth end of his belt. That had hurt like a bitch. Most of these markings had hurt. The pain was an identifier. A burst of physical pain that would be forever memorialized with a scar of some sort. So it was odd that he couldn’t even remember the pain, presumably, that had caused them to even make this newest, biggest scar on his body.

He fingered the ugly red thing down his chest again, and then he put his fingers to his jugular to feel his own pulse. It was slow and regular. Nothing about it seemed to say ‘washed up’ or ‘damaged’. Nothing about the regular pulse said anything about how his life was over.

But yet, his life was over.

Tony stared at himself in the mirror, two fingers of his left hand expertly placed on his carotid artery so he could feel his own heartbeat. He nodded to himself. There was only one thing left to do. It was clear now.

Calmly, he put his plastic disposable razor on the floor and stepped on it, hard, with his heel. The slipper he was wearing didn’t have a hard sole, but it was enough to break the cheap little thing. He bent over and picked up the pieces, throwing away the plastic handle and the other little bits. But what was important was that he’d managed to break the blades off of the holder, and he could separate and extract a blade from it. He gave his image one more look in the mirror before he began slicing the insides of his arms, from wrist to elbow. First one, and then the other, as deep as he could manage it, ensuring that he sliced through the ulnar arteries and veins. Everyone on Gibbs’ team was more than familiar with how to work a blade, so Tony knew that he’d done a good job here. Blood ran down his arm all the way down the cut, slowly at first, then he lowered his arms and blood streamed in rivulets down his wrists and dripped onto the pristine white floor, pattering steadily. He gave himself another look in the mirror, nodded to himself. This was the right thing to do.

It was getting harder to remain upright, even though he would have liked to watch himself in the mirror and witness his own passing. But you can’t always get what you want. He certainly knew that full well. He was soon forced to sit down.

He welcomed the darkness when it came for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter ends with a rather explicit scene of attempted suicide where Tony slits his wrists/arms.


	4. The Deep

**Chapter Four: The Deep**

[](https://i.imgur.com/239cCfx.jpg)

They were in the bullpen yelling at each other, Gibbs, Fornell, and that idiot from the DEA that Gibbs never ever wanted to see again, with McGee, Ziva, the TAD and various FBI and DEA staff just standing around and watching them. They’d just completed a successful bust in a three-agency joint effort and Gibbs had a bunch of people arrested, in their cells, waiting to be interrogated. Unfortunately, the DEA hotshot wanted to take full credit for the bust, and Gibbs and Fornell were standing their ground and refusing to allow the DEA to take this off their hands, now that they’d already done the dirty work. Honestly, if Fornell had wanted this, Gibbs would have let him have it. Credit wasn’t a big deal to Gibbs. But because it was the DEA that was making a big stink, and it was because of the DEA that DiNozzo was out of commission and in fucking rehab, there was no way on earth Gibbs would give this up to them. Not in a million years.

Fornell was out-yelling the DEA guy and Gibbs was just about to weigh in when his phone rang. He whipped the cell out and glared at the unknown number.

“What?” he barked an answer.

“Agent Gibbs? This is Doctor Khan. We spoke the other day about Agent DiNozzo…?”

“What happened?” Gibbs turned away from the argument, pushing a finger in his other ear to mute the sounds from the bullpen. His heart fell. Why would Tony’s therapist be calling him at 2100 hours?

“I have some bad news…”

“Is he _dead_?” Gibbs gasped. No. No. No. Tony was in rehab. Tony’s heart was healing well, Ducky had already updated him of this fact. He couldn’t have gotten his hands on coke in that secure facility and ODed, could he?

“No, he’s alive. But he was found in his bathroom, unresponsive.”

“Did he OD?”

“No, Agent Gibbs. Agent DiNozzo slit his wrists.”

“ _What!?_ ”

“He’s being treated at Bethesda, and what I am told is that he is currently in critical condition.”

“What?” Gibbs’ knees almost buckled. “How?”

Khan started to speak but Gibbs cut her off.

“I’ll be right there. Will you be there, too?”

“Yes, Agent Gibbs.”

Gibbs ended the call, looked at the still arguing people, put two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. “McGee, go get Vance. Tell him if the DEA gets sole credit for this, he’ll regret it.”

“What?” McGee’s eyes widened.

“Ducky, with me.” Gibbs grabbed his badge and gun and snagged Ducky’s arm, dragging him along with him.

“Boss?” McGee called out weakly.

“Get. Vance,” Gibbs bit out.

“But… where are you going?” McGee sounded worried.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Fornell yelled at them.

Gibbs ignored them all, including Ducky’s inquiries, until they were both safely behind the elevator doors.

“Jethro, do let my arm go, and tell me what in heaven’s name has gotten into you?” Ducky was gently batting at the hand around his bicep.

“DiNozzo’s in the hospital,” Gibbs could hardly get the words out.

“Did he have a relapse? How would he have even gotten any drugs in that secure facility?” Ducky wondered.

“He tried to kill himself,” Gibbs was shocked. He just couldn’t wrap his brain around this. “Slit his wrists.”

Ducky gasped and paled. “What…?”

“They took him to Bethesda,” Gibbs continued. “They say he’s in critical condition.”

Ducky’s pale blue eyes were wide and his hand was at his mouth. “Anthony?” he asked.

Gibbs nodded.

“How was he when you went to visit him last Saturday?” Ducky asked.

“I’ve never once got to see him since he went into rehab,” Gibbs was grim.

“What?”

“He’s refused visitors.”

“The whole time?”

Gibbs nodded.

“Oh, Anthony…” Ducky sighed, full of remorse.

It was a miracle that they didn’t kill anyone on the drive to Bethesda because Gibbs was definitely lead footing it and traffic laws were barely a suggestion in the way he was driving. But they got there quickly and were walking through the halls to the ICU. Doctor Khan was in the waiting room on that floor, and Gibbs made a beeline for her.

“Doctor,” Gibbs greeted her.

“Agent Gibbs,” she gave him a small smile.

“How is he?”

“He’s still in critical condition,” she had Tony’s chart, which Gibbs handed off to Ducky to review. Gibbs waited impatiently while Ducky and Khan introduced themselves to each other. “What the fuck happened?” he asked, almost before it was over.

Khan sighed. “An orderly found him on the floor of his bathroom. He was unresponsive at that point, and he’d already lost a lot of blood. He was at that time in an advanced stage of hypovolemic shock. We immediately administered emergency aid, and EMTs rushed him here.”

Ducky was flipping through the chart and sighing. Gibbs could hear him murmuring to himself.

“Duck?” he had to ask.

“We are lucky he’s even alive,” Ducky shook his head. “Anthony knew what he was doing when he cut himself.”

Gibbs could only gape at Ducky. It was still incomprehensible to him.

“We were incredibly lucky,” Khan broke in. “The orderly was delivering another patient’s meds and accidentally walked into the wrong room. He was supposed to go into the room next to Agent DiNozzo’s.”

Gibbs stared at her in horror. “And if he hadn’t?”

“He would have only been found at the midnight bed check at the earliest,” Khan was solemn. Unspoken was the fact that had that happened, Gibbs would be looking for DiNozzo at the morgue, and not the ICU.

“Fuck,” Gibbs breathed. “ _Fuck_.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “How is he now? Really?”

“He’s in a coma, Jethro,” Ducky broke the news gently, still flipping through Tony’s chart. “The blood loss resulted in organ failure. We are lucky he didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke to further complicate matters.”

Gibbs shook his head, trying to deny it. “This _isn’t_ DiNozzo! He’s a survivor. Why would he do this? Did something happen today?” Gibbs asked. “What made him do this?”

“The only different thing today was that he met with his cardiac surgeon for a follow up,” Khan shrugged. “Otherwise everything was the same.”

“Wait, the surgeon didn’t reschedule the appointment?” Ducky asked.

Khan looked surprised and shook her head, showing them her phone that had Tony’s schedule pulled up. It was clearly marked that he had his cardiologist appointment that afternoon.

“ _I_ was supposed to be there,” Ducky explained. “But due to a case related conflict, I was unable to make it. I had requested that we reschedule as I wanted to be there, in person, to talk to Anthony about this.”

“About what?” Gibbs asked.

Ducky sighed. “Jethro. This is not good news for Anthony. His heart will never be the same, and will no longer be able to withstand the stress of being a field agent,” he told Gibbs, his voice soft because he knew this was upsetting news, not just for Tony but also for Gibbs. “There are also complications to his condition arising from his compromised lungs. Therefore, I cannot, in all good conscience, allow him back in the field.”

“And you guys just _told_ him that? Without warning anyone?” Gibbs knew he was yelling now, but he couldn’t help it. Tony was devoted to the job. Being told he couldn’t come back would have been a huge blow. Gibbs understood how he felt because he didn’t know how to let go of the job either, even though he’d already tried to retire once already. Tony would definitely not have taken this news well. Hell, _Gibbs_ wasn’t taking this well, either. He couldn’t even imagine how he would do this job without Tony by his side. “Did _you_ know this?” he glared at Khan.

“I was not informed of this update, no,” Khan was glaring now, too. “We would have definitely been more proactive, had we known.”

“I _told_ them to reschedule this,” Ducky defended himself. “I wanted to be there to help ease him through this news. I wanted to show him all the different options of positions that I have researched that he can move into! I had a long list of ideas, all of them things that aren’t just the typical pencil pushing position that would kill Anthony with boredom long before his heart would give out! I would have spoken to you, Doctor Khan, or the facility administration, to work with you on supporting him through this! I would not have just told him he was out of a job and walked away, like a _nitwit_!” Ducky was angry now, too.

“What the fuck, Ducky?” Gibbs ran his fingers through his hair. This was overwhelming. Gibbs was having trouble accepting the fact that Tony was never going to be his partner again. And Tony had tried to kill himself. Gibbs couldn’t really think through this because it was incomprehensible to him that someone so attuned to himself, so full of life, would choose to take his own life. “Can we see him?”

Khan nodded and led the way to a small room. Gibbs couldn’t believe his eyes. Tony was lying so still, and so pale, wires attached to his body, a bag of plasma hanging with the various other bags, machines making a soft cacophony of orchestrated noises. They were still trying to replace the blood that he’d lost.

Gibbs couldn’t tear his eyes away from his old friend. From Tony. His forearms were tightly wrapped from wrist to elbow. He looked like he’d lost quite a bit of weight in the time since Gibbs had last seen him, in yet another hospital room. What the hell was it with DiNozzo and hospital rooms? Wasn’t it enough that Gibbs had had to watch him suffer through concussions, gunshots, and stabbings? And the fucking pneumonic plague? Gibbs still couldn’t even look at blue lights without having flashbacks to that dark time. He’d thought it was bad enough that he’d had to watch him in a hospital room after open heart surgery, and now here he was, in a hospital room yet again, because Tony had come far too close to killing himself? Gibbs’ brain was whirling and he couldn’t find himself, find a way to calm himself down.

Tony had never looked so frail.

Gibbs’ knees were weak as he staggered over to the bed and gently grasped his hand. “DiNozzo,” he rasped. “Tony. I’m here.” He squeezed the limp fingers, hoping to get a gentle squeeze back, but there was nothing. “I’m here, Tony,” he put a hand on Tony’s stubbled cheek. “Tony…”

Ducky brought him a chair and urged him to sit. He and Khan went off to confer with Tony’s doctors and Gibbs was left alone with Tony and his own, wild thoughts. Ducky would catch him up on Tony’s condition later. All Gibbs could think about now was that he needed to be here, hold on to DiNozzo, before he slipped completely out of his reach. Gibbs had anchored him to life before, and he could do it again. He wouldn’t fail Tony now.

He gripped Tony’s hand and kept ordering him not to die. To stay with him. To _live_.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[](https://i.imgur.com/GUKtq5b.jpg) [](https://i.imgur.com/GUKtq5b.jpg)

The next few days were a blur. Gibbs ignored all the different things that had gone wrong or could go wrong with Tony.

There was a chance of brain damage. There was a chance his heart would be even further damaged by this. There was a chance he would never wake up.

Gibbs refused to listen to any of it. He sat in his chair by Tony’s side, gripped his hand, and he kept speaking to the man. Telling him not to die. Telling him some of the dumbass things that McGee and Ziva had been up to while Tony had been on his long assignment away from them. Gibbs complained to him about the TADs that they had been assigned, both during Tony’s undercover op with the DEA, and now in the weeks since Tony’s heart attack and stint in rehab. How there were pools at NCIS on how long any of them would last. He gloated about how one TAD had only lasted a half hour before he’d scared them off the team. He told Tony things that he thought would make the man laugh. He would kill to hear him laugh again.

And in the quiet of the nights in the ICU, he whispered soft words of love in Tony’s ear. Words he had never said out loud to the man. Words he’d barely ever said to any of his ex-wives, come to think. Not for a lack of opportunity with the three of them, but because he hadn’t felt it for them. Not one of them had ever really come close to him after the death of his girls. Gibbs knew that he’d never gotten over their loss. The deaths of Shannon and Kelly had been almost too much for him to bear. But this, with Tony, Gibbs knew that this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. He couldn’t lose Tony, too. He hadn’t even been a good friend to the man in the past few years, and he certainly didn’t deserve any more chances. But Tony deserved to live. To be healthy again. To not be in this bed where people tiptoed around him, and they tested his responsiveness every so often, scanned his brain, monitored his every bodily function to ensure they were up to date on his condition.

Gibbs needed to see Tony open his eyes. Needed to see those beautiful green irises again. Needed to see that mischievous twinkle in his eye, a saucy grin on his lips, and those dimples creasing his cheeks. He needed to hear Tony talk about a whole lot of nothing so he could playfully smack the back of his head. More for show, these days. But he needed to see Tony awake and functioning again.

Ducky kept him supplied with coffee and clean clothes, but he refused to leave Tony’s side, and he refused to let anyone else in to visit him. As the person who was Tony’s designated medical proxy, he had the right to do that, so he did. Tony didn’t need other people coming in and looking at him as if he was dead. Because he _wasn’t_. And Gibbs refused to let anyone who would have anything negative to say about Tony anywhere near him. Everyone said that people in comas could hear what was going on, so there was no way Gibbs was going to let Ziva or McGee in to bicker and joke about the reasons why Tony might have wanted to kill himself, or worse, belittle him for the addiction that had led to so many different complications, including this current one. Gibbs needed to do everything he could to protect Tony now, since he’d obviously failed to do that in the past.

To his surprise, Ducky cooperated. Gibbs spoke briefly to Vance on the phone, when the NCIS Director called to update him on the interagency case that Gibbs had so abruptly stepped away from. And to express sympathy about the family emergency that Ducky had informed him was Gibbs’ reason for the time off. Gibbs grunted his way through the conversation, hung up as soon as he could, and sighed. It was good that Vance had no idea what was going on here. He didn’t need the added stress of NCIS breathing down his neck, especially since Vance had never really warmed up to DiNozzo.

Gibbs sat in the chair, holding DiNozzo’s hand, and letting his fingers gently caress the cool skin on the back of Tony’s hand. He spoke softly about how he had barely coped with the situation after Tony had been sent afloat. How he was barely coping now. He apologized to the unconscious man for everything he could think of. In the end, he was reduced to begging instead of ordering Tony to wake up. To stay. To live.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first time Tony swam back into consciousness, he could hear a rhythmic beep beep beep noise coming from off to the side. He struggled to pry his eyelids open, saw that he was on a bed. He could smell that distinct smell of harsh cleaners, medicine, and sickness. He was in a hospital.

There was a weight on his leg. He tried to make his eyes focus, but it was difficult. He thought he saw Gibbs, head on his thigh, eyes closed… was he asleep? Their fingers were interlaced.

Oh.

It had to be a strange dream, then. There was no earthly reason that Gibbs would be holding his hand. He closed his eyes and let the darkness sweep over him and engulf him.

The next time Tony started swimming into the light, he fought hard to stay in the dark. The nothingness where nothing happened and nothing hurt him was what he wanted. It was what he craved.

Unfortunately, his brain started awakening and he could hear beeping again. He vaguely remembered hearing it before but everything was hazy. A voice speaking in a soft murmur nearby. He tried to find the darkness again, but unfortunately his efforts to stop himself from rousing only resulted in more light.

He struggled for a few moments before he blinked his eyes open.

“Tony,” a hoarse voice called his name, and he was gently embraced and fingers were in his hair, caressing his scalp gently. “Tony. Hold on. I’m getting the doctor.”

Tony blinked a few more times before his vision cleared. Blue eyes, silver hair. Gibbs. Had Gibbs actually hugged him? Had to be his imagination. He wasn’t exactly at his best at that point.

He looked around and saw that he was in a hospital room. He sighed and closed his eyes, awash with disappointment. He’d failed.

“No, no, no,” Gibbs was urging him. “Stay awake. Stay with me. Open your eyes, Tony. Tony. Tony, look at me.”

All he could feel was disappointment. He looked down at his bandaged arms, wondering how this had gone so wrong. He wasn’t supposed to be here anymore. He was done with this. He was done being Tony DiNozzo. Had he not cut deep enough? He thought he had. Surely he had. Should he have made more cuts? Slit his own throat? Tried to get to his femoral artery? He didn’t think the flimsy little blade could have done serious damage to his femoral artery. God. He was such a fucking failure he couldn’t even get _this_ right?

Well. There was always a next time. Tony would definitely not fail again.

Gibbs was slapping his face gently, still calling his name. He opened his eyes and gave him a sour look.

“ _God_ , DiNozzo, you really gave us a scare!” Gibbs barked at him.

He flicked his eyes away from his Boss. No, his _former_ boss. Tony wasn’t a field agent anymore. Couldn’t be one, ever again. Because Tony’s time was up.

There was a tickle in his throat, and he tried to clear it. He realized that his throat was bone dry.

“Here,” a straw was shoved in his face and he sucked in ice cold water. It felt good going down his throat and in a fit of petty rage, Tony stopped drinking to deprive himself of that soothing coolness. He didn’t want to be soothed. He didn’t want to be here at all.

Gibbs took the cup and straw away, putting it on his tray table. “Your doctor’s on his way.”

Tony nodded.

Gibbs was staring at him, eyes wide. He even looked concerned.

“What?” Tony frowned at him.

“Nothing,” Gibbs muttered, shaking his head.

Tony sighed. There was something going on, but he just didn’t care to find out. His eyes wandered around the room, taking in the machinery he was connected to, and the fact that he was in a tiny little windowless room.

God. He didn’t even get a window. No view. Not even the shrubbery and the exercise yard.

Why couldn’t they have just let him die in peace?

“Tony. Hey! DiNozzo!” Gibbs was trying to get his attention.

He turned and saw that there were other people there with Gibbs. He’d completely missed them coming into his room. He sighed. What new torture were they going to put him through now? He didn’t even have a goddamned window to look out of.

“Agent DiNozzo,” one of the newcomers was speaking. He had a white lab coat on. Some kind of doctor, no doubt. “Do you know what today’s date is?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “No,” he said shortly. He hadn’t been paying attention to the date even when he was in rehab. He didn’t know what the date was when his life ended, and who knew how long he’d been in the hospital since then.

“Can you tell us your name?”

“Tony.”

“Last name?”

Tony sighed in annoyance. “DiNozzo. Do you need me to spell it?”

The doctor looked pleased by his response. Tony endured several more questions, asking him to do basic math, quizzing him on days of the week, who the president was. After a while, Tony lost interest in them and refused to answer any more questions.

“Agent DiNozzo. One more question. Do you know why you’re here?” the doctor kept trying.

Tony sighed. “Yes.” He knew he sounded annoyed, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to be here. He wasn’t supposed to be here anymore. And if he sounded annoyed about being here, well they could just suck it.

The doctors looked at each other, and Gibbs was just staring at him now.

“You’re a very lucky man, Agent DiNozzo,” another man said.

Tony and Gibbs exchanged a glance that spoke volumes. Who the hell was this motherfucking idiot, calling Tony a lucky man? Tony gave him a disdainful look and resolutely closed his eyes, settling back into the pillows.

“Agent DiNozzo?”

“Go away,” Tony stated as firmly as he could, and he kept his eyes closed and ignored everything going on around him. He focused instead on the deep ache in both his arms, where he had cut himself. The pain was a comforting reminder of what he almost achieved.

He would have to be patient now. He would need to wait until they stopped hovering about. Until Gibbs lost interest and forgot about him. Then he would find another way.

And this time he was not going to fail.


	5. Hovering

**Chapter Five: Hovering**

[](https://i.imgur.com/239cCfx.jpg)

“Agent DiNozzo,” Tony’s therapist smiled at him as she walked in.

Gibbs, who had been Tony’s shadow the entire time since he’d awakened gave her a curt nod, squeezed Tony’s hand, before he slipped out the door, the orderly sitting in the chair at the wall across from him trailing after, leaving Tony alone with his therapist.

“How do you feel today?” she asked when they were alone.

Tony kept his eyes on the window and his mouth shut. Who the hell cared how he felt, because if they did, then they would have just let him bleed out on the floor of his stupid rehab room. How did he feel? He thought he’d made that abundantly clear by what he’d done.

“I was consulting with your medical doctors and they tell me that they’ve told you all their good news? Your brain scans look normal. They don’t believe that there was any long term damage to your brain. Time will tell, but it looks as if your heart wasn’t further damaged.”

Yeah. Tony had been there, trying to block out their words when they insisted on telling him about his condition and what they had done to ‘save his life’. He didn’t care if it made him ungrateful as fuck, but he was so sick of everything. All the talk about him and ‘no further damage’ and ‘full recovery’ and how ‘lucky he was’ just fucking annoyed him.

It wasn’t as if he was going to magically grow a new heart or new lungs. It wasn’t as if he was magically going to heal the things that were already damaged. It wasn’t as if he could just step right back into his old life. And not only that, he _didn’t want_ to just step right back into his old life. It wasn’t enough. It hadn’t been enough even when he wasn’t so damaged, and he was sick of trying to make it enough. He was never enough. Message received, loud and clear.

He was sick of trying to do anything. Breathing was a chore. Breathing was a punishment. Why was his life a constant stream of punishments?

The wise thing to do now was to pretend to get better. To just lie his way through this. He could fool this therapist. He’d fooled so many of them before, so he could definitely convince this one that he was fine. That would be the wisest thing to do. Because if he got her on his side, then he could recover from this, go back and finish his rehab, and then he could just go home to his apartment, get his off duty weapon and shoot himself in the head or the back of the neck. Somewhere that would guarantee fatality. Maybe he could cut his wrists first and then shoot himself in the back of the neck. To be doubly sure.

But all of that required time and patience and most importantly, energy. Tony was tired of scheming to get his way. What did it say about his life that even this honest desire to stop existing required him to scheme and lie and pretend in order for him to get to a place where the goal would be achieved? Tony didn’t have the energy to do all of this anymore.

He should have run off to a monastery to learn how to stop the things that a body did involuntarily when he had the chance. Then he could stop himself from breathing and stop his heart from beating, and just let go. Just like that. He wouldn’t need to cut himself or shoot himself in the head, or both. He wouldn’t need to have to pretend to be fixed in order to get what he wanted.

They were asking too much of him now.

A hand tapping gently on his brought him out of his reverie. He acknowledged his therapist with a flick of his eyes.

“I also know that your cardiologist gave you some bad news,” she continued. “Before this, I mean.”

Tony mentally rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to give the woman the satisfaction of getting a reaction out of him. Yes. Rub it in, why won’t she, that Tony was an absolute nobody now. Tony DiNozzo was completely worthless. He already knew that, thank you very much.

“It may feel hopeless now, but I assure you, it is not. It will get better. You are not defined by your profession.”

No? What defined Tony then? If Tony wasn’t a cop, then who was he as a person? What made him someone people would care about, would make them want to know him. Maybe even love him? He was clueless about that. He’d tried so hard to earn his mother’s and Senior’s love, and he’d failed there. He’d never really fit into any of the PDs that he’d worked for, even though he’d enjoyed it and had been good at it. Besides, in Baltimore, Danny was a dirty cop and he couldn’t trust the man anymore. Trust was key in his profession. His former profession, he had to remind himself. Danny had helped define him and what he was willing to turn a blind eye to. But then there was NCIS, that had originally embraced him and made him feel at home, but then that stopped. It was clear now that his NCIS family was an experiment that had failed spectacularly. Wendy left him practically at the altar. Jeanne believed he murdered her father in cold blood. Looking back at it like this, Tony could definitely see that his track record for personal connections wasn’t great. He had some frat brothers he’d been close to, and was still friends with, sure, but everyone was busy. Everyone had their own lives. It was stress relief for them to get together and relive the old days, but they didn’t try to integrate into each other’s lives anymore. Everyone had their own wives, ex-wives and families now, anyway, except for Tony. So what else did Tony have now?

Nothing. That was what Tony had now. Nothing except the burden of being forced to keep breathing in and out and sit here and listen to the therapist talk, and Gibbs talk, and strangely enough, endure Gibbs holding his hand and refusing to let it go.

But, at least they’d moved him into a room with a window. He was on too high a floor to see anything, really, and there were no neighboring buildings close by to look at, but it was nice to see the sky. Sometimes he saw birds flying by. He liked that. Fast and free. If he were a bird he’d find a plane and allow himself to be sucked into the jet engine. There was definitely no coming back from that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been a week since Tony woke up from the coma and Gibbs was even more exhausted and confused than ever. Gibbs had been at Tony’s side the entire time but the younger man barely even looked at Gibbs, never mind spoke to him. In fact Tony wasn’t speaking at all. Not to anyone. Anita Khan came to see him at least twice a day, and apparently he’d decided to say nothing to her as well.

Gibbs watched as Tony refused to be present. The disappointment in his eyes when he’d first woken up and looked around the room had been a punch in the gut to Gibbs. Tony was actually upset that they’d saved his life. He could tell that from the expression on Tony’s face.

The good news was that despite the massive blood loss and the organ failure and the different things that they had feared would go wrong with him, physically he was recovering. If there was brain damage, they really couldn’t tell at this point, given that Tony wasn’t cooperating, but medically it all looked good. His brain scans seemed normal. So whatever it was that was going on with him, it wasn’t a physiological issue.

The bad news was that he was now on suicide watch. One on one suicide watch, in fact, where a hospital staff – nurse, orderly, someone – had to have Tony in sight at all times. They had moved Tony out of the ICU and into a private room, but Gibbs was still camping in Tony’s room, all day and all night. He knew that the hospital was watching Tony, but there was no way he was going to be able to take his eyes off him, now that they had determined that he was still at serious risk of making another attempt. At this point he had been placed in a room without anything sharp, anything harmful had been removed, the window was shatterproof, and every precaution had been taken to ensure that anything that Tony could use to harm himself was either removed or attended to. He did still have thin sheets, and he wasn’t yet restrained, but he had to be accompanied everywhere, even to the restroom. And now, he was back on an IV because he’d stopped eating and drinking for the past couple of days.

Gibbs was at a loss as to what to do. He didn’t understand how Tony could have spiraled down this far without him getting any hint of it. And now that Tony no longer had the will to hide it, Gibbs could see it. The depths of despair in his eyes the few times he looked Gibbs in the eye threatened to overwhelm Gibbs.

The silver haired man could only sit in his chair and keep his fingers intertwined with Tony’s. He refused to let Tony go. He couldn’t imagine a world where Tony was dead because he no longer wanted to live. If Tony was to die, which in their line of work wasn’t just a theoretical possibility, it would have been in the line of duty in some heroic way. Not this. Tony was supposed to be vibrant and fun and full of life. This man that was slowly wasting away in a hospital bed – on purpose – that wasn’t Tony. Gibbs wanted to shake him and ask him what the hell happened, and how could he fix it? Because Gibbs was desperate to fix it. He needed Tony to let him help. He had to do something. He couldn’t just sit there and watch Tony die because that was what he was doing now. Tony was willing himself to die, even if no one would make it easier by allowing him access to any of the tools to do this.

Gibbs’ phone chirped and he looked down at it. It was Vance. He ignored it and turned back to Tony, whose eyes hadn’t even moved from where they were trained, looking out the window. He patted Tony’s hand gently, before picking up his book. Ducky had been kind enough to bring him the book he’d had on his night stand. And even though Gibbs’ brain wasn’t actually focusing on the words, he made himself pretend to read, flipping the pages slowly, because he felt self-conscious, sitting here with Tony and having absolutely nothing to do. Tony had given him a disdainful look when he’d tried to talk, so now Gibbs sat and pretended to read, all the time holding on to Tony’s hand like it was a lifeline.

His phone rang again, and Gibbs didn’t even bother to look at the caller ID. Vance could leave a message or fuck off. Gibbs was on leave. He ignored the chirping and let his eyes roam the pages of the book slowly.

When his phone chirped a third time, he heard Tony sigh. Immediately he looked up at his face. Tony’s eyes were on him.

“What?” he asked, heart skipping a beat. It was the first time in a long time that Tony had met his eyes of his own volition. Without Gibbs trying to get his attention.

Disappointingly, Tony’s eyes flicked back to the window.

Gibbs waited for a long moment, hoping Tony would speak, but when nothing followed he tried not to get upset. A year ago, if anyone told him that he would practically be begging DiNozzo to speak to him instead of smacking him to shut up, he would have definitely head slapped them to kingdom come. But here they were. Tony was too busy trying to starve himself to death to give Gibbs the time of day.

Gibbs really wished that he knew how it was that they had gotten to this place. If Tony would just talk to him, even if he couldn’t fix things, he would at least know what was going on in Tony’s head. Tony had always hidden all of the things that were meaningful to him and chattered on to deflect from the fact that he wasn’t actually saying anything of substance, and Gibbs had always known that, and always known how to read between the lines and get what it was Tony was not voicing. But now, stripped of the desire to deflect, apparently Tony had nothing to say.

He sighed and returned to looking at his book. He’d already been removed from the room once for yelling at DiNozzo in frustration. He didn’t want the hospital to do it again. He had been frantic with worry for the couple of hours or so that he’d been barred from Tony’s room before Doctor Khan stopped by and allowed him back in, after extracting a promise that there would be no more yelling. Not that any of it seemed to have had any effect on Tony. He’d remained in that same state of just existing, drifting along in his head and keeping his eyes on the window.

Gibbs found himself gently stroking the back of Tony’s hand with his thumb, looking at it, examining it. Already, he thought he could feel that Tony’s skin felt dryer. As if his refusal to drink was already affecting him, even though they were giving him fluids intravenously and keeping him hydrated. They weren’t yet at the point where they would force feed him, go with some kind of feeding tube, and Gibbs was hoping that it wouldn’t get that far. He just didn’t want to have to put Tony through that kind of indignity, but he would absolutely authorize it if it meant that Tony kept breathing.

A few minutes later, his phone chirped again.

“You should get that,” Tony’s raspy, long unused voice surprised Gibbs enough that his fingers froze and the book clattered onto the floor.

Tony’s eyes were still trained on the window, and Gibbs wondered if he’d imagined it, so he gave the orderly sitting in a chair against the wall a questioning look. She nodded, indicating that she’d heard it too.

“Tony?” Gibbs ignored his still chirping phone.

“Gonna get fired,” Tony was still gazing idly out the window, his dry, chapped lips were barely moving and his throat clicked when he swallowed.

“Doesn’t matter,” Gibbs told him. “That doesn’t matter at all.”

One of Tony’s eyebrows went up in disbelief but he said nothing else. Gibbs kept his eyes on him, and when his phone rang again, impatiently he answered. “ _What_?” he growled into the phone.

“Gibbs…” it was Vance.

“Not a good time,” Gibbs interrupted him, before he ended the call. He’d kept his eyes on Tony the entire time and noted the slight lift of one side of his mouth, looking like a faint smirk on a face that had long seemed completely devoid of life. “See? Couldn’t care less that that was Vance.”

“Was it?” Tony asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Huh,” Tony breathed out slowly and swallowed with difficulty.

“Can I please give you some water?” Gibbs knew he was begging, but he didn’t care.

Tony turned his eyes to Gibbs, and he was struck with how sad and tired Tony seemed. “No,” he whispered. “I don’t need it.”

Gibbs took Tony’s hand in both of his. “But why?” he pleaded. “Why?”

“Nothing left here for me,” Tony told him, his tone matter of fact. “Let me go, Gibbs.”

Gibbs knew that Tony wasn’t just asking him to let go of his hand. He was asking for Gibbs to let him go forever. The permanent never coming back to life kind of letting go.

“No,” he told him, trying not to sound belligerent, but it was difficult. Gibbs had very few emotional settings, and ninety percent of them were some variation of angry. Getting angry with Tony got him nowhere now. But if there was one thing Gibbs was good at, it was being pigheaded. Gibbs was not going to let Tony go without one hell of a fight. “You still have us. Me. Ducky. Abby. McGee. Even Ziva.”

Tony rolled his eyes before turning back to the window.

“No. Come on,” Gibbs urged him. “Why don’t you think we’re here for you anymore? Abby always said we were family. Why don’t you think of us as your family anymore?”

Tony blinked slowly, but he stopped speaking.

“Look, you say you want me to let you go, then you have to _tell_ me why I should,” Gibbs tightened his hold on Tony’s hand. “ _Convince_ me of this. Maybe then I’ll help you.” Gibbs was lying, but he thought it sounded real.

Tony snorted softly. Of course, Tony had worked with him for years and knew his style of interrogation inside and out. Had made it his hobby to study Gibbs’ style in interrogation, had seamlessly interacted with Gibbs during interrogations, anticipating and responding to every spur of the moment change in strategy that needed to be done. As a team, Tony and Gibbs had been pretty much flawless in the interrogation room, the number of people they’d broken was an agency record. But now, Tony was using his knowledge against Gibbs.

“DiNozzo, I swear to you, if you talk to me about this, and make me understand what’s going on with you, I’ll do this. I’ll let you go,” Gibbs kept trying.

Tony just closed his eyes, his signal that he was done with this conversation. Gibbs’ phone chose that moment to chirp again and with an aggravated growl, he answered. “I _told_ you, now is _not_ a good time!” he told whoever that was, not even waiting to hear their voice before he hung up. If it was Vance, maybe this time he would get the message.

“Please, Tony,” Gibbs turned back to him. “I want to understand.”

Tony sighed. “Why now?” he finally asked.

“Why now what?” Gibbs wasn’t sure what he was asking.

“Why do you care now?”

Gibbs gaped at him. “I’ve _always_ cared about you!” he declared fiercely.

Tony’s only response was a snort of disbelief.

“I know I’ve been more of a bastard in the last couple of years, but that’s… that’s just me being me,” Gibbs frowned. It wasn’t a good excuse, but it was the truth. “Not like you didn’t know me. It never meant I stopped caring about you. You’re the only one on the team that I handpicked. _I_ chose _you_. I didn’t choose any of the others. _You_ chose Kate and McGee to join the team. Jenny foisted Ziva on us. I didn’t object to any of them, let them stay if they could stand me. But you, I chose. I _chose you_ all those years ago, and today I _still_ choose you.”

Another snort.

“I told you way back then I don’t waste good,” Gibbs told him fiercely. “You’re good. Then, now. Always.”

“Lie,” Tony’s voice was soft but it cut Gibbs to the quick.

“I’m not lying,” Gibbs growled at him. “But you obviously think so. Tell me how I failed you.”

Tony closed his eyes, and pursed his lips. Gibbs waited but no more words were forthcoming.

“Please,” Gibbs’ heart was breaking. “Please, please tell me how I failed you. I did and it kills me that I did, and I don’t even know what it was. Tell me what I did.”

Tony blew out a long breath, and remained silent, with his eyes closed.

“I’m sorry, DiNozzo,” Gibbs whispered. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry.”

Tony’s eyes opened and he gave Gibbs a look. “Stop breaking all your own damned rules,” he murmured, before he closed his eyes again.


	6. The Light

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see specific warnings in the end notes of this chapter.

**Chapter Six: The Light**

[](https://i.imgur.com/CoFKrAI.jpg)

“I understand that you can’t leave Anthony now, Jethro,” Ducky was giving him that sympathetic look that made Gibbs want to claw his own face off. “But you must at least speak to Director Vance. He is concerned about you, and rightfully so.”

“I’m not the one he needs to be concerned about,” Gibbs crossed his arms. He was feeling antsy, like he always did when he had to step away from Tony’s bedside. Anita Khan was in Tony’s room with him now, so he’d had to leave, and Ducky had used this time where Gibbs was forced out of Tony’s room to corner him and have this unwanted conversation with him. For a moment, Gibbs felt a pang of empathy for Tony who was also going through the process of trying to avoid talking to people who felt it was in their best interest to speak.

“You know I cannot speak to Vance of Anthony’s condition.”

“You better not,” Gibbs growled. “This is not any of his business.”

“I know that. Doctor-patient confidentiality does apply.”

“This is Tony’s life we’re messing around with,” Gibbs gritted out. “I won’t let anyone make this any less of a dire emergency by talking about things they know nothing about.”

“I know, Jethro. I know. I know how bad things are,” Ducky put an arm on Gibbs’ shoulder. “It would merely make things easier for you if you were to take one call from Vance, assure him that you are fine, but that the family emergency is taking longer than expected.”

“I can always take a leave of absence.”

“This is true. But Vance is also your friend now. He will still keep calling you, if only in the capacity of a friend.”

Gibbs sighed. He knew that Ducky was right, but he had no control over what Tony was going through, and he didn’t feel like ceding this one thing that he had control over, just to appease Vance. But Ducky was right. Even if Gibbs took a leave of absence, Vance would still call. Hell, he would probably call more, because when did Gibbs the workaholic ever take a vacation, much less a leave of absence? Gibbs would do the same if their roles were reversed. But Vance really wasn’t a big priority at that moment.

“Tell Abby, McGee and Ziva that I am completely out of touch,” he told Ducky.

“I have.”

“Tell them _again_.” They kept calling him.

Ducky rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Tell them I am serious and if they call me again, I will make them regret it,” Gibbs was dour. “And they’d better not track me down and try to come and find me. That will not go well.”

“They care for you, Jethro.”

“I don’t have time for their crap right now. I have my hands full here.”

Ducky looked like he was going to object.

“This was not a cry for help, Duck,” Gibbs kept his tone firm. “Tony meant it. You’re a medical doctor. You understand better than I do, the way he’d cut himself, that even if he’d been found a few minutes later, it would have been too late.”

Ducky nodded reluctantly.

“The others will have to fend for themselves while I’m here. Because the minute I turn away, he’ll do this again. He already hates that it didn’t work the first time. He won’t fail again. He’ll make sure of it this time,” Gibbs rubbed his face. “I need this time away from everyone, and most importantly I think Tony does, too.”

Ducky sighed, but he nodded. “I will pass this message along.”

“And don’t tell them anything about Tony.”

“Of course not,” Ducky rolled his eyes.

Gibbs nodded his thanks.

“You know, you can turn your phone off if you do not wish to be bothered, Jethro.”

“I’d turn my phone off but I don’t want to miss a call from Tony’s doctors. Just in case something comes up and they couldn’t find me in person.”

Ducky nodded his understanding. “Abby sends her love,” he told his old friend.

Gibbs nodded. He knew that Abby would be confused by Gibbs’ decision to sequester himself and Tony here in the hospital, with no one but Ducky aware of what was going on. But he didn’t know if introducing her into Tony’s life at this point in time was in Tony’s best interest. It would make Abby feel better, sure, but Gibbs couldn’t predict whether Abby’s presence would be a positive or negative thing for Tony right now. And his conversations with Khan hadn’t cleared any of it up. It could go either way. In the end, he felt it was safer for everyone involved if they just stayed away and let Gibbs put his focus entirely on Tony, and getting Tony back from the brink. Gibbs was literally hoping to stop the man from stepping off the ledge, and he hadn’t slept properly in god knew how long, so he didn’t have the energy for Abby’s shenanigans or to pamper her, or to be there for her. Right now he needed to be there for Tony and just for Tony.

“We just need to get him better,” Gibbs said grimly.

“He needs to start speaking,” Ducky’s tone was gentle.

Gibbs gave him a look. Of course Tony needed to start speaking. Tony was bottling everything up and refusing to listen, never mind speak. Gibbs knew that what they needed now was a miracle. Some way to get through to him. Some way to get him to open up. What it was he didn’t know, but he was damned if he was going to leave the man right now.

“I’m happy you’re fighting so hard for Anthony, Jethro,” Ducky patted his shoulder gently. “He needs you to.”

Gibbs nodded. There was no way he was going to give up now. He was absolutely going to do everything he could to fix this. Failure was not an option.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[](https://i.imgur.com/GUKtq5b.jpg) [](https://i.imgur.com/GUKtq5b.jpg)

Gibbs didn’t care if Tony regretted ever granting him power of attorney as well as medical proxy. All those years ago, when they were a two-man team, they had agreed to be each other’s official emergency contacts, proxies, and had powers of attorney documentation on file so that they would have rights over the other should one of them be deemed incapable of making their own decisions. Back then, they had thought it would be something like getting shot or stabbed, or some other terrible work-related incident that meant being brain damaged. They’d trusted the other person to be the one rational enough to pull the plug and authorize their organs to be donated. That had been their agreement.

Today, Gibbs was refusing to allow Tony to die. He’d just had a short meeting with Doctor Khan, Ducky, and a hospital administrator. Tony had been refusing to eat or drink for too many days now, and even though they were keeping him from being dehydrated with the intravenous fluids, he was weakening and in danger of more complications. His heart and his lungs weren’t taking the strain of starvation well, and he had taken major steps backwards in his recovery from the trauma of his previous suicide attempt. He needed to be force fed, or things would go very badly very quickly.

He was still resisting all their efforts though. He would have to probably be restrained so they could insert a feeding tube. It was going to be ugly. Gibbs didn’t want to put Tony through this but he didn’t feel like he had a choice, so he asked them for one more day. If he couldn’t convince Tony to accept help voluntarily, then he would OK the feeding tube the next morning.

Khan and Ducky had both argued against this, wanting to do this right away, but Gibbs couldn’t imagine not giving Tony one last chance. So he’d dug in his heels and asked for one more day.

He took the time to grab a shower in the staff locker room and put on fresh clothes that Ducky had brought, pour himself a fresh cup of coffee before he went back to face off against Tony. He wasn’t looking forward to this conversation but it had to be done. He nodded a greeting to the orderly sitting in the chair who was flipping through a magazine. Tony was on the bed, paler than ever, looking even more fragile than he had when he was in a coma.

“Tony,” Gibbs smiled and put down the next book Ducky had brought him. This time it was from Ducky’s bookshelf and was something about autopsies in 19th Century Great Britain. It didn’t really matter to Gibbs. The book was mostly a prop. “I know you don’t want to, but we need to talk.”

Tony didn’t even acknowledge his presence.

“The hospital can’t let this go on,” Gibbs continued, taking Tony’s hand, squeezing it gently, before he sat down. “They want to force feed you.”

That made Tony turn to look at him.

“You’re thinking, they have no right to do this,” Gibbs shrugged. “They can’t force you to eat if you don’t want to. But you never rescinded my POA. Given all that you’ve been through these last few months, I’m making the legal decisions for you now.”

“I’m clear headed,” Tony’s voice was so sandpapery, it hurt Gibbs to hear it. “Mentally sound. I know what I want.”

“I know you know what you want, but legally, I can’t let you do this,” Gibbs clasped Tony’s hand in both of his. “I don’t want to put you through this, but if you continue to refuse food or drink, I _will_ authorize it.”

The corners of Tony’s lips turned down in a sullen pout, and Gibbs tried not to let it or the appearance of Tony’s dimples affect him. It had always been one of Gibbs’ pet peeves, the fact that Tony’s dimples appeared regardless of whether he was smiling or pouting. They had distracted him on more than one occasion.

“Don’t make me OK them putting a feeding tube down your nose, Tony,” Gibbs held his gaze, refusing to allow himself to be distracted by the appearance of Tony’s dimples, so adorable and yet incongruous with the unhappy expression on his face. “Please don’t make me give them the go ahead to restrain you, and force feed you. You don’t deserve that.”

The set of Tony’s lips told Gibbs his answer. Tony wasn’t budging. Gibbs nodded, his eyes feeling hot.

“I copy,” he said solemnly, feeling the burn in his eyes intensify. He sniffed loudly and nodded. “I bought you one more day of this,” he shrugged. “They wanted to do this today, but I wanted to talk to you about it first. Try to reason with you. Give you a choice.”

“I’ve made my choice,” Tony told him. “ _You’re_ the one not respecting it. You’re the one not giving me a choice.”

“I see that,” Gibbs didn’t know what got into him, but he pulled Tony’s hand up and placed a soft kiss on the back of it. The dry skin there was definitely not imagined anymore. Gibbs would have to ask Ducky to bring a moisturizer or something, so he could keep Tony’s skin from drying out even worse. Maybe something from Tony’s apartment, something expensive that he would normally make fun of. But nothing was funny right now. “I see that, Tony. I see you. I don’t agree, but I see you, and I’ll give you one more day of your choice. Tomorrow, though, I’ll make my choice. It’s not the same one as yours.”

He put the book on the bed, propping it up on Tony’s thigh, and forced himself to look at the pages, even though his eyes were still burning. He could feel Tony’s eyes on his face, and for the first time during this time in the hospital, he refused to look up to meet his eyes. If Tony wanted his attention, he was damned well going to have to ask for it. Gibbs couldn’t bring himself to just do Tony’s bidding today. He was too busy trying not to picture the scene that was to come tomorrow. They would need to do a five point restraint, maybe even have to restrain the top of his head, too, before they’d be able to safely insert the feeding tube. Tony would object. As strenuously as he could. Verbally as well as physically. Of that he was certain. He would struggle against the restraints, he would scream his anger and helplessness. And Gibbs would insist he be there, to not allow Tony to go through this alone, even if it would kill Gibbs to see it happening, and know that he had signed off on it.

Minutes passed in silence with Tony staring at him, Gibbs resolutely ignoring it.

“You’re not even reading,” Tony’s words surprised him. “The words go left to right, you know. Your eyes aren’t.”

“So?” Gibbs mumbled, turning the page, and forcing his eyeballs to move left to right as if he were reading.

Tony snorted. “Why won’t you respect my decision?”

“Because I don’t understand it,” Gibbs replied, still keeping his eyes on the page.

“Why do you even care?”

“Because I do.”

“You’re fucking impossible.”

“Nothing new there.”

“This caring thing is new,” Tony rasped.

“It’s _not_ ,” Gibbs growled, flipping a page angrily.

“Then why did you think it’s OK for me to work without backup?”

Gibbs couldn’t stop himself from glaring at Tony and meeting his eyes. “It’s _never_ OK to work without backup. Not for you. Not for me. Not for _anyone_.”

“Lie,” Tony countered.

“Name one time I’ve allowed you or anyone on the team to do things without backup.”

“That Military At Home case.”

“What about it?” Gibbs frowned. He remembered the case, remembered closing it without incident. Other than Tony losing his voice and almost being blown up. But nothing else. No other warning signs.

“McGee and Ziva turned off the radio when I was getting voiceprints,” Tony had turned back to the window. “Those MAH guys could have shot me and they wouldn’t even have known.”

“What?” Gibbs was genuinely shocked. “Why would they do that?”

“Tired of my voice, they said.”

Gibbs scrubbed his face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tried. After work. Brought you evidence. You told me to suck it up.”

“ _What_?” Gibbs wracked his brain, trying to recall. He remembered Tony coming to him in the bullpen when it was just him left, that night. Ziva and McGee had left for the day and Tony was working OT. There was a ton of paperwork an SFA had to complete. But Gibbs had been in a terrible mood, had just gotten off the phone with his father, was still worried about the Reynosa cartel coming back and hurting Jackson. He’d just been out of sorts. When Tony had come to him with a complaint, he’d brushed it off. He did recall that. And now that he did, he could only stare at Tony who was back to looking out the window.

“None of you are my family,” Tony said softly. “I thought you were. I thought you would care about me like I care about you. I thought you did. But you don’t. And I’m tired of trying to make you. It takes two to tango, and I’m tired of dancing solo.”

Gibbs could only gape at him now.

“Talk is cheap. You say you care, but your actions say something else. I’m tired of this stupid game. I’m tired of everything. I know your style of management is like the _Hunger Games_ , all of us have to kill each other or kick each other aside to compete for your approval. That’s fine. But I didn’t like going into the field with people who’d rather turn their radio off than ensure my safety. Who needs family like that?”

“Tony…” Gibbs sighed. He had no excuses for McGee and Ziva. What they had done was inexcusable. “What about Ducky? And Abby?”

“Abby and I haven’t even been close since you left us and ran off to Mexico. She punished me for not being you while you were gone, and when you came back, she was happy to punish me for still being here. For still being me.”

Gibbs gaped at him. He didn’t realize that the rift between Tony and Abby had gotten so large. Why hadn’t he noticed this? “And Ducky? Surely…”

“Ducky thinks I have narcissistic personality disorder.”

“What? That’s not true.”

“ _’Course_ it’s true.”

Gibbs blinked at him for a long moment, unsure what to say. He wasn’t even sure now whether he was arguing that it wasn’t true that Ducky would really think that Tony had narcissistic personality disorder, or if he was arguing that Tony didn’t have this disorder. He thought maybe it was both.

“It’s my entire life in a nutshell. Go ahead and deny it. You’ve denied everything else, why change that now,” Tony shrugged. “Or, let’s do a tally, shall we? Abby stabbed me in the back the minute you went away. Ducky thinks I’m pathologically incapable of thinking of anyone other than myself. My team refused to back me up properly. My boss never respected me or my opinions. Senior’s a dick and more of a narcissist than I could ever be, and that’s saying a lot. Just ask Ducky. I’m too infirm to do my job, so that’s gone. My heart and lungs will give out at any time. I gave my goldfish away. What do I have left? Why prolong this existence? It should have ended already. I don’t want to be here anymore. I made my choice. Why are you still here with me now? It’s time for you to lose interest, it’s what always happens. Just go the fuck away and let me die in peace. There’s no reason to drag this out any longer than we need to.”

Tony could only manage a hoarse whisper now but his words still packed a punch. It was the matter of fact way in which Tony spoke that felt like stab wounds to Gibbs’ gut. To him, that was the absolute truth. And if he were honest, Gibbs couldn’t help but agree with his accounting. Gibbs had done the unforgivable, and turned his back on Tony when he’d come to him with a serious concern. With the type of accusation that should have had Ziva and McGee fired for endangering a teammate, if and when they proved it. If Tony had actually come to him, he would have had evidence to back him up. That was how Tony operated. And he would have also been the one to petition hard to not have Ziva and McGee fired. He would have just wanted to ensure that neither of them broke protocol ever again, and left anyone in the lurch without backup, especially when they were undercover.

Gibbs had screwed this up big time. He’d allowed the situation on his team to get too far. He didn’t know what movie Tony might have quoted, and even though a small part of him was cheering on the fact that the younger man had even included a movie in his speech, he knew that it also meant that Tony hadn’t been happy for a while. Gibbs understood that everyone had been turning their backs on Tony, and he had just taken it and smiled and pretended that everything was alright. That was what Tony did. That was what he had always done. But everything wasn’t alright. _Tony_ wasn’t alright.

Gibbs had to wonder if this was the catalyst that got Tony down the path of being a coke addict. Maybe it all started with them, and their treatment of him, their lack of concern or care. Tony had grown up neglected and quite probably abused by Senior. It made sense that how Gibbs and everyone at NCIS had treated him would end up being the last straw. Abuse and neglect. That was what Tony knew, and that was what they had inflicted upon him. He was self-aware enough to have seen that. But Gibbs couldn’t help but wonder if he’d just blamed himself for not being ‘enough’ to be considered family by the others.

“I’m sorry…” Gibbs tried.

Tony closed his eyes. He was done talking.

“You’re right,” Gibbs kept trying. “I’m sorry. I fucked up.”

“You should go,” Tony’s eyes remained closed, but Gibbs clearly heard the hoarse whisper. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want _me_ here.”

“ _I_ want you here,” Gibbs insisted. “I _do_. I’m going to be here until I make you understand that. I fucked up, I know. But I’m not going to fuck this up now. I’m not turning away from you now. I may have been a bastard and a half and ignored you when I shouldn’t have, but I’m not ignoring you now.”

“I don’t need you now. I needed you _then_.”

“I can’t change the past, but I sure as fuck can fucking stick around and change your mind now.”

Tony sighed. “Ask Ducky to bring you a nine iron next time he comes.”

“Why?”

“So I can whack you in the head with it, of course.”

Inexplicably, Tony’s grumpy delivery of that made a laugh bubble uncontrollably out of Gibbs. He cracked up and laughed and laughed, until tears ran down his face. Tony was giving him the evil eye.

“It was the seven,” Gibbs finally wheezed, wiping the tears away one handed, still gripping Tony’s hand with the other. “Not the nine.”

“My mistake. I’m more a basketball man than golf.”

“And you’re not an ex.”

“Ex-Senior Field Agent.”

“Never fucked you. Never even kissed you. I may have broken my promises to you, but it’s not the same,” Gibbs tried not to laugh again. Because this really wasn’t funny. And really, he was just crying now. He kept wiping his face with his sleeve.

“I changed my mind. Tell Ducky to bring the driver instead.”

Gibbs howled with laughter at that, and he saw that Tony was smiling bemusedly at him. “Tell you what, you eat and drink something, and I’ll let you go to town on my head with _all_ of Ducky’s clubs,” he managed to say, as his laughter died down.

Tony made a face, but even though they stopped talking, it didn’t feel quite so oppressive in the room anymore.

In the morning, when Doctor Khan and Ducky came into the room all somber and grim, without looking at them, Tony whispered, “Just bring it and I’ll eat it.”

There was a moment of complete silence, before Gibbs smiled, wider than he’d smiled in a long time, dropped another kiss on Tony’s hand, and squeezed it gratefully. “Thank you, Tony. Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony attempts suicide again, this time by starving himself, and refusing food and drink.


	7. Dry Land

**Chapter Seven: Dry Land**

[](https://i.imgur.com/239cCfx.jpg)

“How did it go today?” the therapist asked.

Gibbs shrugged. “Seemed OK.”

The man raised an eyebrow and gave Gibbs a pointed look. “Your first day back at work in months and it ‘seemed OK’?”

Gibbs blew out a long breath. Why, again, was _he_ in therapy? Oh right. Because Doctor Khan had thought it would be helpful for him to have support while he was trying to be Tony’s rock. She had been so entirely tricky with it, too. With her kind looks and sympathetic ear. And her “I think it would be better for you to get through this, and be more effective at helping Agent DiNozzo if you, also, had support, don’t you?”

The implication there had been that it would make Gibbs be better at helping Tony, and given how Tony had been floundering, and how much Gibbs had fucked up in the past, how could Gibbs be selfish and say no to that? He just couldn’t picture himself with the whole heart attack scenario again, or god forbid, be the one to find Tony’s body after he successfully made another attempt at taking his own life. So yeah. He’d signed up for therapy immediately, despite the years and years of resistance against such a thing. He’d even asked Khan to recommend a therapist, since he didn’t want to work with her, in case Tony felt uncomfortable working with Khan because she was also Gibbs’ therapist. Gibbs didn’t want to jeopardize Tony’s recovery by bogarting his therapist. Khan had quite happily recommended someone and after Gibbs met with him for the first time, he seemed adequate. To a certain extent, he trusted Khan, so he would take her word and give the new therapist a chance.

So now here he was, sitting in a chair across the desk from his very own therapist. Gibbs was not a couch person, nor did he feel comfortable speaking when he was relaxed in an armchair. Gibbs was not a ‘relaxed’ sort of person. He did better sitting in the regular chair, across a desk, and that was how he got through his sessions.

“It was weird,” Gibbs had learned that being honest was best. “For everyone. Vance didn’t know how to talk to me. McGee _hugged_ me,” he curled his lip at that.

“And Ziva?”

“She looked at me like I was the one that had failed her,” Gibbs muttered, trying to tamp down the anger there.

So he had finally taken the evidence Tony had gathered, regarding the Military at Home case, determined that Ziva and McGee had, in fact, turned off the radio surveillance while Tony was all over the gated community, ringing doorbells and speaking to everyone in order to get their voiceprint. They had left him without backup. Anything could have happened to him. Anything. He could have been assaulted and killed by anyone, even by people not even connected to the case they were investigating. He could have interrupted a robbery in progress, and his backup would not have known.

He’d lodged the complaint officially with HR and then taken it to Vance, and when Vance wanted to sweep it under the rug, he’d put his foot down and sicced HR on everyone involved, claiming that it was biased and prejudicial treatment. Vance didn’t care that Tony DiNozzo’s safety had been jeopardized, because he wasn’t sold on the agent. But that shouldn’t matter. Every agent should be assured of their backup, and Gibbs was sick of the whole entire thing. This was the thing that had driven Tony into this self-destructive streak that had ended up with a heart attack, the end of his previously storied career in law enforcement, and a suicide attempt that had come close to being successful. Gibbs could not stand by and let this happen without the proper consequences.

Ziva and McGee had both been given formal reprimands, suspensions, and sent back to FLETC for retraining. Vance had also had a formal reprimand placed in his records, and was being audited by IA to ensure that he was not working with any other biases, against any other employee of NCIS, from field agents to the cleaning staff. Gibbs had put a formal reprimand in his own record for the incident, and asked HR for a suspension without pay, which he used to sit with Tony in the hospital.

It had been a long few months, and Gibbs had finally been forced to go back to work that day.

“How does that make you feel?” the doctor asked.

Like Gibbs had been betrayed? Like Gibbs should have thrown the book at her? Sent her back to Israel in shame? He didn’t know. “Angry,” he shrugged. It was a simple word, but it had taken him a while to actually express his own emotions. “ _I’m_ not the one that deliberately broke protocol and put a teammate in jeopardy.”

The doctor nodded. “Do you regret reporting the incident?”

“No,” Gibbs stated firmly. “Not one bit.”

The man laced his fingers together and gave Gibbs a thoughtful look. “And how did _you_ take being back at work, and away from Agent DiNozzo for the entire day?”

Gibbs sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Badly,” he said shortly. Yes, he’d missed being by Tony’s side. Of course he’d missed that. But worse, he had been so anxious. Worried that Tony would do something to himself without Gibbs being there to keep an eye on him.

“I’m told he was quiet, today, but it wasn’t a bad day for him.”

Gibbs nodded. “They kept me updated,” he mumbled. The hospital had called him every hour to give him a sitrep for Tony. It probably was a good thing that one of Tony’s main nurses was a former marine and he’d been the one to do this favor for Gibbs. The men had bonded over their service in the Corps, and now their service in law enforcement and in medicine. It had become a real friendship for Gibbs, and he was glad that Tony had a friend with him even though Gibbs had to go back to work.

The doctor smiled. “I’m proud of you.”

“Why?” Gibbs made a face. “I checked up on him. I didn’t just let go. I didn’t… trust that he’d still be alive when I came back this evening.”

“We’ve spoken about this. You also went through trauma with what was happening to Agent DiNozzo,” the man spoke patiently. It wasn’t the first time that Gibbs had heard this.

He nodded.

“But he was alive when you got back.”

Gibbs nodded again.

“That’s a good thing.”

Gibbs could only nod.

“But you also feel…?” he left the sentence open for Gibbs to finish.

“Redundant,” Gibbs supplied, after a long pause.

The therapist smiled. “It’s only natural. You’ve been with him practically 24/7 for a long time.”

Gibbs nodded.

“You both need to learn to function separately again.”

“I know.”

“So this is why I’m proud of you. You’re taking steps in the right direction.”

Gibbs took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “OK.”

“Good. Now, do you want to talk about these feelings you harbor for your former Senior Field Agent that you’ve kept bottled up?”

Gibbs glared at the man. “No.”

“It can only help you process it and deal with it.”

“He’s too fragile still. I’ve read all about how starting a new relationship this early in recovery is a bad idea.”

“So you do want a relationship with him, then?”

Gibbs blew out a frustrated breath. “I didn’t say that.”

“I didn’t hear a no.”

Gibbs rubbed his face and was silent for a time. “I know what I want, but I need for Tony to be well first. Nothing else matters.”

“You matter. Your feelings matter.”

“I don’t even know if he feels the same way, and now is not the time for changing our current relationship.”

“But you aren’t his boss anymore.”

“I’m still his _friend_ ,” Gibbs snapped.

“But in time…?”

Another long pause. “I don’t want to keep fucking things up for him. He needs to focus on himself, for once.”

“What if you learn that he reciprocates, or has the potential to reciprocate your feelings?”

Gibbs closed his eyes and tried not to let that sliver of hope start blooming in his chest. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” Maybe then, he’d be able to court Tony because the man deserved to have that. That was something to look forward to, if things went well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a long road back for Tony. There was a lot of one step forward, two steps back motion, and Tony had many, many bad days before the good days started outnumbering the bad. Hell, half the time, on Tony’s good days, Gibbs was convinced that Tony was only making it look as if he wanted to get better, and was doing things to lull Gibbs into a false sense of security. It made Gibbs hypervigilant, and it annoyed Tony. But for whatever reason, Tony never sent Gibbs away, and Gibbs refused to walk away.

On the bad days, Gibbs’ only comfort was the thought that through all of this hell that Tony was going through, even back during the time when he refused to eat or drink, Tony had never pulled away from Gibbs while he held his hand. Even when things had been so dark for the younger man, he let Gibbs hold on to him. On the really bad days, Gibbs held on tight to Tony’s hand and the memory that Tony had never pulled away from Gibbs’ hold.

But Tony was improving. Slowly, but surely, he was getting better, and the improvements came in small but visible steps.

When Tony was downgraded from one on one observation, down to once every fifteen minutes, Gibbs was both exhilarated and terrified. Because what if Tony did something in the fourteen minutes in between a hospital staff’s next visit? Tony only rolled his eyes and pointed out that Gibbs was still giving him the one on one observation, regardless of what the hospital was doing. It wasn’t like Gibbs was taking his eyes off Tony for those fourteen minutes. But still. It was terrifying for Gibbs. Every step forward that Tony took to reclaiming his health and his life was exciting and terrifying for Gibbs, but he tried to be there, unflinchingly, for all the days, both good and bad.

Tony was eventually no longer regarded as at risk of suicide, and deemed healthy enough physically as well to be transferred back into rehab. He hadn’t complained when during his hospital stay, his pain management plan was less effective than it would be, since they were avoiding the medications that could affect his addiction, and even so, he quickly weaned himself off of anything, even the harmless Motrin. Gibbs knew that he’d never really been a fan of pain meds and been inordinately sensitive to them in the past, anyway. But Gibbs was still his constant companion, even though Tony was still an inpatient in rehab, for a few more weeks until Gibbs finally had to go back to work. The rehab facility had decided to make an exception for Gibbs, given how he’d been the one to pull Tony back from the brink of death. Greg, the ex-marine nurse that Gibbs had become friends with, kept him updated on Tony throughout the days he was at work and Tony was working through the program. But given what he’d been through, Gibbs still came and spent the night in the rehab facility with Tony on the recliner that they’d brought into Tony’s room for that purpose.

When Tony had progressed enough to qualify for outpatient treatment, Gibbs gave him a choice of either returning to his apartment and Gibbs would move in with him, or he could move in with Gibbs temporarily. Well, out loud Gibbs said temporarily but in all honesty, he would be OK if Tony decided to make the move permanent. But he also knew that Tony wouldn’t respond well to any intimation of that sort, and take it to mean Gibbs wanted to control him and didn’t trust him. To Gibbs’ relief, Tony chose to move in with him and occupied the guest bedroom. And despite the mild grumblings from the man, as it turned out, living with Tony was not a hardship. In fact, it was quite pleasant.

Tony was doing well with rehab, working his way through the program, and was looking well again for the first time in months. He’d joined a gym and was working out, and even though he was working with both Brad Pitt and his new cardiologist, Gibbs worried that he was pushing himself beyond the boundaries that his heart and his lungs would be able to take, but Tony tended to just laugh at him and poke fun at his tendency to worry.

But Gibbs could see that Tony was getting better and better, and becoming more himself again. Becoming more the Tony that he had hired back in Baltimore. Tony had come back to NCIS once to clear out his desk. Instead of taking a desk position, no matter the different options that Ducky had researched to bring to him, he’d decided to make a clean break with the organization. They had processed him out as a retirement for very legitimate on the job related health issues, so he was now a retired federal agent with enviable benefits and a lot of free time.

Gibbs knew that Tony would need things to do to fill his time. Even though Tony took care of the both of them, and took over cooking in their little household, it wasn’t really enough. There was only so much time Tony could waste at the gym. He’d also decided to distance himself from the people from NCIS, and so he wasn’t really trying to keep in touch with McGee, or Ziva, or even Abby. He tolerated Ducky’s visits, but their relationship wasn’t the same anymore, and he’d found a different primary care physician. Gibbs didn't know if Tony ever spoke to Ducky about the whole narcissistic personality disorder thing, but he was trying to stay out of it. Tony could be friends with whomever he liked, and he could decide to not be friends with them as well. It was not any of Gibbs’ business and he was working hard not to let it be his business.

Gibbs was working with his therapist to learn to be supportive of Tony without trying to dictate his life choices. He even ended up banning Abby, Ziva and McGee from coming into his house without being invited, because Abby had come to the house one evening while Gibbs was still at work, and there had apparently been a brouhaha. Gibbs didn’t know anything other than the fact that Tony was trying to lug his suitcase out the door when he pulled into his driveway. Gibbs had convinced Tony not to move out, but he also had to make some concessions, such as adding real locks to his front and back doors and actually using them. He ended his previous open door policy at the house. It was fair, because Tony didn’t want to live in a place where he felt like he couldn’t lock the doors or feel safe, and Abby’s arrival and their subsequent argument had convinced him that he needed to go home to his own apartment where his doors had all the locks and deadbolts that he wanted. It wasn’t even a difficult decision. Gibbs would rather have Tony in his life and his doors locked and dead bolted, than to have Tony walk out on him. He still couldn’t even settle down to sleep at nights without checking on Tony several times, making sure he was still breathing, assuring himself that Tony was asleep and not dead every time.

Yeah, so Gibbs’ therapist definitely had a lot to do, helping Gibbs decide how he wanted to act, how to process these changes. And there were definitely changes to Gibbs’ lifestyle, beyond just the locking of doors. One of the things that Gibbs most hated about Tony living with him and cooking for him was the fact that he now had to eat vegetables on a regular basis. Tony was on a heart healthy diet, and Gibbs didn’t want to discourage him by insisting on eating a separate meal of steak and potatoes while Tony chewed through his dark leafy greens and grilled salmon. But Tony was a good cook, and even though the food wasn’t something Gibbs would choose to eat of his own volition, it did seem like bad form to rub it in that he was still healthy enough to keep eating things that were bad for him, and keep going to work while Tony had had to retire. So he choked down the vegetables, and actually liked the heart healthy proteins that Tony made for the both of them.

Interestingly enough, the only person Tony didn’t have an issue with was Fornell. He never objected to Fornell’s unexpected visits. They just tended to grumpily exchange insults, and even though Fornell regularly called Tony a freeloader and threatened to arrest him again, Tony never took offense. He only threatened to take away the plate he’d set out for Fornell’s dinner, asking him who the freeloader was now. Fornell also had a slew of bad _The Odd Couple_ jokes that made both Gibbs and Tony roll their eyes. And he and Tony would just jaw at each other continuously, but be able to sit together and have a pleasant meal with Gibbs.

Gibbs really didn’t understand how Tony’s mind worked at times, because he didn’t know why Fornell was allowed to say certain things while Tony refused to see Abby, McGee or Ziva. But hey, Gibbs was in therapy and he talked about it with his therapist, and learned to let it go and not be the one to control Tony’s life or his choices. As long as Tony was healthy, Gibbs was fine with everything. But he had to admit that he enjoyed it when Tony and Fornell argued, and then clinked their drinks together good naturedly when Fornell complimented the food Tony had made for them. It was good to see it, Tony with his bottle of soda or glass of water, and Fornell with a bottle of beer.

If Fornell was having a bad day, Gibbs would take him down to the basement and give him a mug of bourbon and let him talk after dinner while Tony watched a movie or something upstairs. These days, Gibbs hardly ever drank and only had a bottle of bourbon in the basement, and no more than a six pack in the fridge. He’d originally poured out all of the alcohol when Tony first moved in, but Tony had demonstrated that he was committed to his recovery, and convinced Gibbs that it was OK for Gibbs to have some alcoholic beverages in his own house. After all, Tony would be expected to remain sober in public settings, many of which would involve the opportunity to drink. But still, Gibbs only ever had beer if Fornell brought over a six pack, and the emergency bourbon in the basement, which he obsessively kept track of, just in case Tony had a bad day. It was odd for him to go almost dry himself, but it was worth it to see Tony happy, healthy and alive, still living under his roof despite the fact that he’d been released from rehab for some time.

Gibbs started seeing brochures for graduate school around the house, and was happy that Tony was looking for things to do for the future because it meant that Tony was anticipating a future for himself, something that Gibbs no longer took for granted. But strangely, it was Fornell who ended up pointing Tony in the direction of a new career. It turned out that when Tony was working that last undercover op with the DEA, his cover had been that of an investment banker. Gibbs had been surprised that Tony had been a successful one, not that he’d ever doubted Tony’s ability to pull off anything, but that he hadn’t been aware that Tony had double majored as an undergraduate, Business being one of his majors, Phys Ed the other, and that he had an MBA that he’d worked on achieving over time. So Tony had been a good investment banker. But after they’d closed the DEA’s case, Tony had written a report that he’d sent to the FBI’s White Collar Crime division and the SEC, detailing the firm’s unethical and at times illegal actions, that had resulted in the SEC coming down hard on the firm. It hadn’t been part of Tony’s mission and he hadn’t given a second thought to it after submitting the report, but apparently, someone had noticed it.

Fornell was over for dinner, and he gave Tony the card of the SAIC of the DC office White Collar Division, saying that they wanted him to consult with them on a similar case right here in DC. Tony made the call, took a meeting, and ended up with a whole new career.

He became an independent contractor, and consulted with all of the alphabet soup agencies and many police departments, working mostly white collar crimes, although he also consulted on other cases – violent crimes, terrorism, and the like. Tony had the kind of experience under his belt that he could investigate anything, and he was happily consulting on cases without having to put in the kind of hours that he used to working for Gibbs, and was still able to do what he loved to do, and apparently make more money than he had working for NCIS.

It made Gibbs happy to see Tony put his fancy suits on again, and coming home excited about a new and interesting case. Gibbs even allowed Tony to upgrade his internet and set up a secure home network, so he could work from home more easily.

It made Gibbs very happy to see that Tony wasn’t even thinking about moving back to his apartment. Every time they had to go over there, all Gibbs could see was Tony laid out on the floor, the night of his heart attack. It was hard for Gibbs to go back there, in all honesty, so he was happy that Tony was happy living with him, even if technically, they were just friends.


	8. Epilogue: And It Was So

**Epilogue: And It Was So**

[](https://i.imgur.com/239cCfx.jpg)

“How do you feel today?” the doctor asked him.

Tony took a seat and stared out the window. Same old, same old. Lawn. Fence. Woods. “Pretty good, actually,” he turned and grinned at her.

“That’s good.”

“I think so.”

“Your return to NCIS went well, I take it?”

Tony’s grin widened into a gleeful smile. “They had _no_ idea how to deal with me!” he crowed. “It was awesome, especially since the SecNav was the one who asked me to take the case. I didn’t even know that he hadn’t told Vance who he was sending, so it was really fucking awesome to see all their reactions.”

“What about Gibbs? How did he react to your surprise presence there?”

Tony smacked his face. “I thought he was going to just kiss me in front of everyone,” he growled, not really upset though. It had been a nice feeling to see how happy Gibbs had been to see him there, and he hadn’t even batted an eyelid, just stood next to Tony in MTAC and went over the case, as if Tony had never even left the team. Gibbs’ dark suit and maroon polo shirt was pretty textbook for Gibbs and Tony had to keep his hands in his pockets so he didn’t reach out to tangle his fingers with the team lead’s. But they had kept it professional, Gibbs giving him a rundown on the case the way he always had. Ziva’s and McGee’s reactions had been quite different, since the case involved a lot of work untangling complicated financial dealings, and Tony had shown them just how adept he was at that stuff. Their eyes had practically bugged out of their heads. And Vance… well he’d probably bitten through at least three toothpicks in the two hours that Tony had been at NCIS.

“So you’re happy with how it went?”

“Yeah,” Tony’s smile was real. “I am. Although I have to say I do not miss the orange-ness of it all. I had so many migraines from those walls… I definitely don’t miss that.”

“And the case?”

“It’s _very_ interesting,” Tony sat forward, his brain running at full speed, thinking about it all. “I can see why the SecNav thought I could help. I’ve put some feelers out to my contacts and I’m trying to figure some stuff out, but yeah, I’m digging into it now.”

“Did you see Abby?”

“Nope. It was just me, Gibbs, Ziva, McGee, Vance and a couple of techs in MTAC today,” Tony shook his head. What he’d been surprised about though, was that the techs had both greeted him by name and shook his hand, looking like they remembered him fondly. That had definitely been surprising and flattering. Vance had seemed surprised at that, and that Tony not only recalled their names, but even the details of their personal lives, like families and such. But that was how Tony operated. Tony was a people person. Vance had never been able to see that, though. Happily for Tony, Vance’s opinion on him no longer mattered. Although he had to admit, seeing Vance shell shocked at having his illusions of who Tony was shattered had been incredibly satisfying.

“And Ziva and McGee?”

“Meh,” Tony shrugged. “As long as they do the work I asked them to do for this case, we don’t have a problem. I’m not part of their chain of command anymore.”

“How did they treat you?”

“Carefully,” Tony frowned, pursing his lips. “I hope this means they’re done turning their backs on their partners, because if they ever did that to Gibbs, I will personally make them regret it.”

The doctor nodded, scribbling away in her notebook.

“To clarify, that was not me threatening their lives,” Tony rolled his eyes.

“I’m aware,” she smiled back. “Was it weird working with Gibbs again?”

Tony cocked his head to the side, giving it some thought. “You know, it wasn’t,” he was a little surprised at that himself. “There was no awkwardness. I don’t know. It was fine. I know you hate it when I use that word, but it really seems like a good word for the situation.”

“And the fact that you have just started a romantic relationship with him? Did that have any impact?”

“I honestly don’t think so,” Tony murmured. “I can separate my work life from my home life. And Gibbs can, too.”

Although after the briefing and the couple of hours that Tony worked with the team, given them things to follow up on while he left to do his research (and go to his therapy appointment), when Tony said goodbye to everyone, Gibbs had pulled him close and given him a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. He knew that he’d blushed like a virgin after that, but he’d ignored Ziva and McGee, and nodded when Gibbs had told him he’d see him later. He didn’t even care that Ziva and McGee had witnessed him behaving like a thirteen year old with a schoolboy crush. It was a wonder what time could do to a person’s perspective on life.

It had been two years since Tony’s heart attack. He still lived in Gibbs’ house, and while that posed its own unique set of challenges, and he still owned his apartment and had some things still there, like his piano, he was comfortable in Gibbs’ house and didn’t really want to move out. He went home to his apartment to play the piano and putter around at times, but in the evenings he looked forward to going home and seeing Gibbs if Gibbs wasn’t working too late or pulling an all-nighter. Gibbs was a constant in his life now, still his usual taciturn and grumpy ass self, but he was making every effort to be there for Tony, which Tony appreciated. He was also doing his best to be a good housemate and a good friend back to Gibbs, too. He couldn’t deny that his fate was now intertwined with Gibbs’, since the stubborn bastard had refused to let him go, almost two years ago.

So now, Tony was in a good place. He had adjusted to a new lifestyle, a new career, a new relationship even. He’d picked and chosen the people he wanted to keep in his life, and he felt like he was doing that carefully and with thought now. He didn’t want to keep the people who only wanted to bring him down. He’d already demonstrated how capable he was at bringing himself down, so he only wanted people who genuinely cared about him around. Things were going well for him now. He also got to pick and choose the cases he took, so he still had a life outside of work.

Life outside of work included Gibbs in a different way, too. Not the old Boss-Saint Bernard relationship of the NCIS days. Not the, frankly, paranoid caretaker-suicidal maniac relationship that had come after Tony’s meltdown. Not just the open, honest, friendship that had developed in the wake of all that. It was still new, what they were starting. Very new. A month since Gibbs had asked him to dinner, and it was about halfway through the meal that Tony realized they were on a date. Gibbs had taken him to an expensive restaurant, and Tony was halfway through his main course and gabbing away when Gibbs had reached across the table and held his hand. Their fingers were interlaced, and Gibbs had just held on, smiling at him in a way that Tony had never seen before. As if he was _happy_. Happy was not a word most people applied to Gibbs, and it surprised Tony into silence. That was when he realized that they were on a real date – even if they were both drinking sodas with their meals – and that Gibbs was the one who had initiated this.

Tony couldn’t help smiling back then, his heart pounding in his chest. He’d given up on having anything but a platonic friendship with Gibbs a long time ago, so this was completely unexpected. He’d thought there was chemistry between the two of them a long time ago, and he’d relegated himself to an entire lifetime of unrequited feelings. But now, here Gibbs was, holding his hand and wordlessly offering himself to Tony.

He’d swallowed, nodded, turned his hand upwards to grip back.

Gibbs’ smile widened, and he knew that Gibbs had understood his own tacit message back. They had always been good at understanding each other, with or without words. They finished the rest of the meal holding hands across the table. Gibbs was wearing a suit with a real shirt that had even been ironed under the jacket, and even without a tie, he looked great, his blue eyes were bright and hopeful. Afterwards, they wandered around the Smithsonian after hours. Gibbs had pulled some strings to allow them some quiet time in the museum, and they’d walked around looking at the exhibits, hand in hand.

They shared their first kiss when they got home that night, and even though technically they were already living together, it had been a month and they still hadn’t progressed to much more than kissing and some frottage. Which was different for Tony and his old one night stand, wham bam thank you ma’am ways. But Tony wasn’t in a hurry, and neither was Gibbs. Taking it slow and doing it right meant more to the both of them. It was enough, what they had now. They had come through this together, and even though it had been a really dark time for Tony, most of what he remembered from his time in the hospital after his attempt to kill himself, was Gibbs holding his hand and refusing to let him go.

For the first time in his life, Tony was truly happy. And it was better than any high he’d ever experienced.

[](https://i.imgur.com/GUKtq5b.jpg) [](https://i.imgur.com/GUKtq5b.jpg)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for my second NCIS 2019 Reverse Bang story! I hope it wasn't too much of a downer, but it did end happily, right? 😉
> 
> The [original artwork prompt](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/solariana/7360051/42922/42922_original.jpg) was by [rose_malmaison](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rose_malmaison/pseuds/rose_malmaison) and it truly inspired me into writing this story. Thank you for the gorgeous artwork that you made for me! And also, thank you, rose, for giving me great input and support throughout the writing process, and for helping me choose the title for the story. Go check out rose's art post [here](https://rose-malmaison.livejournal.com/172002.html) and give her all the love!
> 
> A huge thank you goes out to [jesco0307](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesco0307/pseuds/jesco0307), my indefatigable beta! Thank you so very much for doing this! ❤️❤️❤️ All remaining errors are my own.
> 
> The songs I listened to while writing this, were:  
> * [Breaking the Habit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2H4l9RpkwM) (Linkin Park)  
> * [Semi-Charmed Life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beINamVRGy4) (Third Eye Blind)  
> * [Let Her Cry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aVHLL5egRY) (Hootie and the Blowfish)
> 
> The title of the story comes from the lyrics of Breaking the Habit:  
>  _I'll paint it on the walls_  
>  _'Cause I'm the one at fault_  
>  _I'll never fight again_  
>  _And this is **how it ends**_
> 
> I did a lot of research on drug addiction, and the scenarios here (Tony's heart attack caused by the reaction of cocaine to alcohol) are complications that can possibly happen. You don't even want to know what my google history must look like. 😝😵 But, if you were interested, here are some of the websites I used to help write the story:  
> * https://drugabuse.com/cocaine/  
> * https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/cocaine/what-cocaine  
> * https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmbkay/what-100-percent-pure-cocaine-actually-does-to-you  
> * https://www.liquor.com/slideshows/best-expensive-scotch/#gs.3g82m2  
> * Article on hypovolemic shock: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/312348.php  
> * https://www.mdedge.com/psychiatry/article/62711/failing-15-minute-suicide-watch-guidelines-monitor-inpatients
> 
> There are references to s08e05 Dead Air, but this story starts at least 6 months after that episode.
> 
> And of course, a great big thank you to [Jacie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jacie/pseuds/Jacie) for organizing this challenge! You're the best!
> 
> For those who might be interested, signups for the [NCIS Big Bang Challenge](https://ncis-bang.livejournal.com/) is still open and authors and artists can still participate! So, come and join in the fun! It's a 5000 minimum word count.  
> * Click here for [Author sign up](http://ncis-bang.livejournal.com/80899.html) (closing 9 JUN 2019)  
> * Click here for [Artist sign up](http://ncis-bang.livejournal.com/81265.html) (closing 16 AUG 2019)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed my story. Thank you for reading this! ❤️❤️❤️  
> -j  
> xoxo


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